HER. FATHERS 
DAUGHTER 


KATHERINETYNAN • HINKSON 


W*: 




CANNOT LEAVE THE LIBRARY. 


Chap 221 . 2 1 

.H 

CTfe'y’i cJ 


Wl%& 

$ 

i 

— ^ 


Shelf 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

q i v. c 








» 


fc 






* 


















\ 








HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 




. 





















Phil, dinging io her unde’s arm, gripped it more tightly than she knew." P. 50. 









HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER 


A NOVEL. 


BY 

KATHARINE TYNAN HINKSON, 

AUTHOR OF “THE DEAR IRISH GIRL,” “THE QUEEN’S PAGE,” ETC. 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. 


> > ) > ) 




NEW YORK, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO I 

BENZIGER BROTHERS, 

Printers to the Holy Apostolic See. 


1901. 

o'c 

Coyfey T.C- 


1 


,H 5 ^ 


W ^ 
\ 

2.0 


thf library of 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

OCT. 31 1901 

Copyright nrrRv 

yi'C'V. I - I q 0 l 

CLASS CLXXo. No. 

a o / c 

COPY A. ' 


Copyright, igoo, by Benziger Brothers. 


0 ■* A- o 

»;v > > e o 

*> * 


*v 


*, ,c : 

14 .V « . 
•) , A « 

') « c < 




* f f c 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I. 

Old, Unhappy, Far-off Things, 11 

CHAPTER II. 

Mother and Daughters, 21 

CHAPTER III. 

The Castle of Dreams, 27 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Storm, 39 

CHAPTER V. 

The Wreck, 47 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Convalescent, 54 

CHAPTER VII. 

An Amateur Providence, 65 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Colombe, 74 

CHAPTER IX. 

Colombe Has Her Way, 80 


8 


CONTENTS. 


Page. 

CHAPTER X. 

Aunt Fin Effaces Herself, 88 

CHAPTER XI. 

“Great Ado There Was, God Wot,” 97 

CHAPTER XII. 

Aunt Fin Is Found, 104 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Father Tom and Phil Have a Plan, 118 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Colombe’s Way, 121 

CHAPTER XV. 

Colombe Makes a Confession, 128 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Colombe’s Triumph, 187 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Colombe is Benevolent, 145 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Phil’s Reward, 152 


Epilogue, 


155 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Page. 


‘ Phil, clinging to her uncle’s arm, gripped it more tightly than 

she knew.” Frontispiece. 

‘ During that long, unhappy journey from France, she was in his 

arms day and night.” 19 

‘ Phil had run up the stairs and was kneeling, the center of an 
affectionate circle of dogs, who were lickixlg and pawing 
her.” 37 

‘ Thinking over these things, Phil had a sudden sense of some 

one’s eyes being upon her. ” 55 

‘ ‘ Phil! ’ gasped Peggy, ‘ don’t say any more. I can’t bear it.” ’ 69 

‘ ‘If I should see Piers Vanhomeigh ! ’ echoed Phil, ‘I am to 
console him, I suppose ; to look after him in your absence. 

Is that it?’” ,83 

‘ ‘It will be your turn next, Phil,’ ” said Aunt Fin, noticing, 

perhaps, a silence that seemed unsympathetic.” . . 93 

‘Phil took her by the shoulders, and shook her. ‘How dare 
you, Aunt Fin,’ she said, ‘and you our guest, too ! How 
dare you ! ’ ” Ill 

‘ The hand which held the scissors shook so much that Colombe 
had to desist. After a few second's Phil went out of the 
room.” 183 

‘ It was with lowered eyelids and trembling lips that Colombe 

spoke.” 139 

‘ ‘ Welcome, Mr. Lismore ! ’ ” she said, ‘ It is awfully nice of 

you to come so quickly.’” 147 

‘She ushered them both into the presence of Father Kirwan 

and the parson, Mr. Thornhill.” 157 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


CHAPTER I. 

OLD UNHAPPY FAR-OFF THINGS. 

The house inhabited by Mrs. Featherstonehaugh and her two 
daughters was on the Mall, an old-fashioned place, which remains 
in one’s memory as a dim vision of shifting green lights and 
shadows. The canal went sluggishly between two rows of tall 
elm and poplar trees which almost met overhead. The banks 
shelving to the water were covered with grass and little water- 
weeds, except where the feet of the canal-boat horses had worn 
a path for themselves. There was little water-way except in the 
midst of the channel, and at the canal edges you could see the 
waving water-weeds thrusting out slender fronds in the green 
water. The canal had become choked probably since the gay days 
when the fly-boats brought it half the traffic of the South of Ire- 
land. Enough water-way remained for the infrequent boats laden 
with bricks or turf that went by so slowly, as though it were a 
Dutch picture and no moving world. 

The houses on the Mall were dark because of the great trees 
in front and at the back. The very light that came through the 
old-fashioned windows of twelve oblong panes was a green light. 
Happily the complexions of Mrs. Featherstonehaugh’s daughters 
were equal to this setting, and the comely lady herself with her 
fortunate silver hair about her rosy cheeks and mild eyes bloomed 
softly in the dark rooms like a rose in an overgrown place. 

Mrs. Featherstonehaugh had once been wont to refer in a 
pensive manner to the fact that she was white before she was 

11 


12 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


thirty. She had been white when John Featherstonehaugh had 
brought her home to the house on the Mall, a beautiful young 
woman, still bearing traces of the heavy grief of her premature 
widowhood. 

She had been the gayest of the gay when John Featherstone- 
haugh had first been her lover. They had met at a Castle ball, 
and had danced themselves into friendship that very first night. 
She was then Columba O’Kelly, an orphan girl living with her 
two aunts in a stately impoverishment in the wilds of Connaught ; 
and heaven knows what pinching and scraping there had been 
before that Dublin season gave the young girl her chance to be 
seen. 

Miss Finola and Miss Peggy O’Kelly sat among the chaperons 
that night watching their niece enjoy herself, and remembering 
their own good days before the Encumbered Estates Act had left 
Castle O’Kelly bare of its acres and its rent-roll. Miss Peggy 
forgot her Maltese flounce which she would never see again ; Miss 
Finola her great-uncle’s tulip-wood cabinet which had fetched 
such a preposterous price from a London dealer, seeing the young 
girl’s happiness in her first ball, and meeting again old friends 
long passed out of sight, but not of memory. 

Columba was certainly in great request. In her white satin 
and pearls, and her white sandal shoes with roses instead of 
rosettes, she danced nearly the night through. 

Kow and again she would come back to the two proud and 
fond aunts, flushed and smiling, to rest by them an instant and 
then be whirled away again. 

It was surprising how many people yet remembered the two 
Misses O’Kelly, though it was twenty years or more since they 
had danced on this very floor, and that was when Lord Carlisle 
was Lord Lieutenant. On every side old friends were coming to 
them now, claiming recognition and waving away the score of years 
as though they had not existed. Columba was not likely to want 
for partners, seeing her own beauty and the newly-restored popu- 
larity of her aunts. She danced perhaps oftener than was quite 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


13 


conventionally correct with the dark, pleasant-faced young man 
whom her aunts called Johnny Featherstonehaugh. But wasn’t 
his Uncle Ralph their nearest neighbor at Castle O’Kelly, and 
had he not brought a delightful atmosphere of neighborliness 
and masculine helpfulness into their quiet lives? Columba had 
only not known Johnny Featherstonehaugh as well as they did 
because she had been at her convent school during the years since 
Mr. Ralph Featherstonehaugh had come to Cliff House, and her 
vacations and Johnny’s had not chanced to synchronize. 

Yes, it was quite suitable that she should make friends with 
Johnny, and dance with him oftener than she would with any 
new acquaintance. 

It was when the night was well-advanced that Columba sud- 
denly disappeared from the ball-room, and did not reappear for a 
sufficient length of time to somewhat perturb the anxious and 
simple-minded ladies. 

When at length they saw her, she was dancing with a very dark 
and elegant young man, compared with whom Johnny Feather- 
stonehaugh, leaning by a door-post, his honest face somewhat 
overcast, looked awkward and provincial. 

“Who is it ?” Miss Finola asked of a new-old crony, Mrs. Max- 
well, of Mount Maxwell. “I don’t think the young gentleman has 
been introduced to us.” 

Mrs. Maxwell looked through her gold-rimmed glasses, and 
looked again. 

“It is M. de Ste. Croix,” she said. “All the girls are wild 
about him, and faith, my dear, he looks as if he had been caught 
at last.” 

A flutter passed from one sister to the other. They had no 
provincial prejudice about the foreigner, but Columba was their 
nestling, and Mrs. Maxwell’s words disturbed them. 

“He is of — good family?” Miss Finola asked anxiously. 

“As good as your own. I suppose nothing could beat the 
O’Kelly blood or I’d say better. Where did he get that shape 
except by breeding? Look at the way he holds his head and the 


14 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


sparkle in his eye, and his fine slender hand and foot. If I was a 
girl myself, Fd be as great a fool as any of them.” 

“Oh, now, Marcella, yon were always a pattern of discretion 
since the old days at the Sacre Coeur,” said Miss Finola, smiling 
faintly. 

“And Dominick Maxwell caught and tamed me young,” went 
on the comely matron, who looked at least ten years younger than 
the maiden ladies who had been her friends at school. “He never 
gave me a chance to sow my wild oats, so it follows that I have 
them all sprouting in me yet. But don’t be anxious about the 
young man, Finola, my dear. I’ve never heard a worse word 
against him than that he shares our common fate of having more 
blood than money. Still he’s not a pauper.” 

“How does he come here ?” Miss Finola asked timidly. It was 
contrary to all her traditions to be violently interested in a young 
man just because he was her niece’s partner at a ball; but her 
anxiety about something in his air and Colomba’s, that something 
which Marcella Maxwell had noticed, made her put aside her deli- 
cate scruples. 

“ He has a bit of land, my dear, enough to sod a lark, some- 
where in the County Westmeath. He comes over a couple of 
times a year to look after it, and he is invited everywhere. Even 
the match-making mothers are not afraid of him, though the 
girls may have their little fancies before they settle down to some 
comfortable, unromantic marriage. He has a way with him, as 
I dare say you’ll find out yourselves before long, but he doesn’t 
seem to follow it up.” 

Mrs. Maxwell went off laughing, and in a very short time her 
place was taken by Columba, wearing the look of pretty penitence 
with which since her childhood she had always been able to dis- 
arm her aunts’ displeasure. She begged leave to introduce M. de 
Ste. Croix, who bowed over the thin hands stained with gardening 
and household work of the two spinsters, as though they had been 
the hands of a queen. 

Poor Johnny Featherstonehaugh was in danger of being for- 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER . 


15 


gotten except by Miss Peggy, who was very faithful to her friends. 
He did not sulk, being the good fellow he was. That night, 
and during the weeks that followed, he was as kind and serviceable 
to the Misses O’Kelly and Columba, as though there was no such 
person as M. de Ste. Croix, though that young gentleman was 
very much in evidence indeed at the lodgings in Molesworth Street, 
where the ladies stayed, at their social functions, and even on their 
shopping expeditions. Often and often Johnny Featherstone- 
haugh found himself somehow escorting one of the aunts through 
crowded Grafton Street of an afternoon, while Columba walked 
ahead, M. de Ste. Croix by her side, the envy of all the girls. 

Perhaps only for the persistent Johnny, M. de Ste. Croix had 
kept his freedom unscathed as he had kept it from girls as lovely 
as Columba O’Kelly, for all her ravishing complexion and red-gold 
hair. But the presence of Johnny in the background, ever patient, 
ever ready to take the position the other man vacated, acted 
more potently perhaps than Columba’s beauty. If Johnny had 
been well-advised he would have gone away for a bit ; but he was 
a straight fellow, without craft, and despite his profession, the 
unromantic one of a solicitor, without suspicion that other men 
whom he accepted on his own level might not be quite so straight 
and uncomplex. 

However he felt about it, when M. de Ste. Croix proposed to 
Columba and was accepted, he took his punishment with an un- 
moved face; and with a characteristic kindness and faithfulness 
he refused to be the shadow on the general joy. Even to Miss 
Peggy, who was fond of him, and had an almost motherly way of 
calling him “my boy” — just like his TJncle Ralph — he revealed 
nothing of the sorrow Columba’s acceptance of the other man had 
been to him ; so that at last Miss Peggy, half-disappointed in him, 
began to believe that her romantic ideas had led her astray in sus- 
pecting an attachment at all. 

Columba went away to France with her husband after their 
marriage, leaving a void indeed in the mouldering halls of Castle 
O’Kelly and in her aunts’ hearts. 


16 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


Two years, three years passed. There was a little girl bom 
of the marriage, another Columba, who almost dispossessed in the 
Misses 0 ’Kelly’s dreams the auburn-haired child they remembered. 
But for those years the little Colombe was only in their dreams. 
Columba’s passionate protests when she left them that she would 
return, were forgotten, or she was unable to come, and her own 
bare, innocent room at Castle O’Kelly awaited her, swept and 
garnished in vain. 

Then one day, before Columba had been four years a wife, 
there came a message like a cry from her. M. de Ste. Croix had 
been injured, riding his own horse in a steeplechase, a newly-dis- 
covered diversion which he had had the honor of introducing from 
Ireland into the Parisian world. He was injured, he was hurt, 
he was dying. Before Miss Finola, in charge of Johnny Feather- 
stonehaugh, could reach her niece’s side, M. de Ste. Croix was dead. 

Into the trouble and helplessness of those days Johnny 
Featherstonehaugh came like a kind, strong genius of helpfulness 
and compassion. He saved the young widow everything that 
could be spared her. What had Miss Finola O’Kelly been without 
him, indeed ? The acuteness of her sympathy made her almost an- 
other burden, and, sitting wringing her hands by the dumb widow’s 
side, she was worse than useless. The little Colombe was a wild, 
healthy child, too young to be long depressed by the trouble about 
her, and no subject for nursing and petting such as her great- 
aunt would have given her. 

Johnny Featherstonehaugh saw even to such a little matter 
as that the child’s happiness and health ought not to be interfered 
with by confinement to a darkened house and its gloomy society. 
The little one went out as usual with her bonne during those 
days preceding the funeral, and conceived a tender affection for 
“\e beau Monsieur Feathers,” who amid the w r reck and ruin of 
everything, found time to visit the shops and bring Colombe 
home a fascinating new doll, and the prettiest boxes of chocolate. 

Wreck and ruin it was. Even while Gaston de Ste. Croix lay 
unburied the creditors were clamoring at the doors, and the ser- 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


17 


vants, all except the tonne , a stout, motherly peasant of Nor- 
mandy, carried dark faces of suspicion, and whispered to one an- 
other about their arrears of wages, without a kind thought for the 
sweet-faced mistress whose rule had been so generous and so gentle. 

Johnny Feather stonehaugh settled it all somehow. The figures 
in his bank-book underwent an alarming alteration about this 
time, but no one was any the wiser except Johnny and the bank 
manager, and the latter was professionally discreet. 

Columba fortunately asked no questions. It was not till quite 
a long time afterwards that Johnny, her unofficial man of busi- 
ness, broke it to her that whatever little property her husband 
possessed in France had had to be sacrificed in order to pay out- 
standing debts. Columba was no woman of business and was 
satisfied that Johnny must have acted for the best. She was 
glad that Knockcrievin, the little Irish property, had been saved 
for her Gaston’s daughter. For the rest, back in Castle O’Kelly, 
the romance and glory of her youth seemed to have passed like a 
dream. There was nothing left of it but her widow’s veil and 
that bright elf, Colombe, whose dancing gayety the widow at times 
gently resented. 

The memory of the dead had not indeed remained with little 
Colombe. On that long, unhappy journey from France, which 
was like a dream of disaster in the widow’s memory, the child had 
been ill, upset by the departure from routine, and perhaps a 
little neglected, despite Marie’s faithful fondness in those days 
of trouble. 

On the journey she had turned pettishly even from Marie to 
Johnny Feather stonehaugh’s arms. During that hasty journey, 
almost like a flight, she was in his arms day and night. No 
wonder that a fellow-passenger, taking Johnny for the tenderest 
of fathers, brought a hot blush to the supposed father’s cheek by a 
sympathetic speech. 

Johnny was at once touched and exquisitely pleased at the 
child’s fancy for him. Though he must often have been cramped 
during the journey, he would not put the child out of his arms 


18 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


even while she slept, and he sat wakeful more than one night 
with the hot little cheek against his shoulder and the little hand 
clasping his. 

It was no fleeting fancy on the child’s part either. A light, 
gay, beautiful thing, like a summer moth, little Colombe seemed 
to have just one thing of permanence, of stability, in her char- 
acter, and that was her devotion to Johnny Featherstonehaugh. 

Her mother was half -jealous of it, not for her own sake, but 
for the sake of the brilliant young father of whom the child had 
not the shadowiest memory, who had been pushed out, dispossessed 
of his one child’s heart by the stranger. 

She fretted over it one day to Johnny himself. 

“ Any one would think you were her father,” she said com- 
plaining, and then, with a flash of bitterness, “I think children 
are horrible.” 

“She was too little to remember,” said J ohnn}', gently. “She 
is a loving little thing. Why not give me a father’s right to look 
after her, Columba?” 

On the woman’s side the marriage was one of convenience, 
though the ugly thing was more presentable than usual. J ohnny 
was the dearest of friends, and the child adored him. He ex- 
pressed to Columba’s mind everything that there is of what is 
honorable and estimable. And Castle O’Kelly became poorer and 
poorer year by year. After the first shock of amazement the 
widow began to look at every side of J ohnny’s proposal. Of course 
she could never give him any love; that was out of the question, 
since her heart and youth lay buried in Gaston de Ste. Croix’s 
grave. But everything else she could give him, quiet affection, 
and trust, and respect and obedience. 

So on those terms they were married, and Johnny Feather- 
stonehaugh never seemed to make it a grievance that his wife 
did not swerve in all the years that followed from the bargain she 
had made with him. He never grumbled, though years after- 
wards, when the weakness of mortal illness wrung speech from his 
long silence, he talked on the matter once to his own daughter. 



During that long, unhappy journey from France, she teas in his arms 
day and night.” P.17. 
































' 








' 










HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 21 

“I served twice seven years for my Rachel, Phil,” he said, 
when the sweat of mortal pain was on his forehead, “and I never 
won her after all.” 


CHAPTER II. 

MOTHER AND DAUGHTERS. 

Philippa Featherstonehaugh was, as people said, Johnny’s 
own daughter. She had the same kind, grave eyes, the half- 
humorous, half-tender mouth. She was brown-skinned like her 
father; but her brown hair had borrowed something of gold from 
her mothers, and lay close and fine, like bronze feathers, as it was 
drawn back from her wide brows. 

She had always been graver than her years, a responsible little 
person even as a small child, whose sudden laughter came upon 
people, delightful and bewildering. Johnny Featherstonehaugh 
had been serious and merry: his daughter followed him with a 
humorous appreciation of the humor of things behind a grave 
and bright face. 

She had always been taken for Colombe’s elder, from the time 
it was possible to blunder about their ages. The passage of the 
years made the five years of time between them insignificant, 
seeing that the younger was so much quicker of development, so 
much more mature of mind. What did Colombe want with intel- 
lectual things indeed ? She was no shallow-pate ; but her beauty 
was not of a kind to be associated with intellectual effort. She 
had a thousand pretty accomplishments ; she was the brightest of 
the bright, and had charming and deft ways. It would have been 
unfair that her beauty and grace should have been accompanied 
by more serious mental gifts than these. 

She had inherited her mother’s lovely coloring without that 
mother’s placidity and self-absorption. Colombe was never still, 
a bright, glancing creature, who seemed to bring brightness into 
a room when she entered it. There was no mystery behind the 


22 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER . 


gentian-blue eyes. When you met Colombe for the first time you 
felt that you knew all of her that was to be known. But he would 
be exacting indeed who should ask for more; and Colombe’s 
world was not exacting. Perhaps after all there was more of 
mystery in her than any one suspected. 

There were a good many unspoken thoughts as well as spoken 
between Johnny Featherstonehaugh and his daughter Phil. 
Sometimes they conversed in their veiled manner over Colombe 
during those long days of illness, when the friendship and confi- 
dence between father and daughter grew knitted with the inten- 
sity of bonds that must soon be strained to breaking. Sometimes 
it was Colombe’s mother who was in their thoughts, and indirectly 
in their speech. 

Once there was a sudden flash of bitterness from Johnny, when 
Phil had remarked that Colombe took little or nothing from her 
own father. It was a light for Phil over a dark place in the past. 
Her intuitions were quick and she only needed the clue to find the 
whole difficult way. 

“No, thank God,” said Johnny, with hard emphasis, “when he 
died, he died indeed.” 

“It might have been better to have spoken,” said Phil, remem- 
bering how the dead man had persistently kept him who was now 
dying out of his wife’s heart. “Why should she have made a 
saint of him all these years?” 

“What matter, child?” Johnny said, a little drearily. “Her 
paradise has not been spoiled. How could I have answered for 
what might happen to her if I had spoiled that for her?” 

Phil was silent. She was so much of her father that in- 
stinctively she jumped to his point of view. Through his self- 
sacrifice her mother had kept that sweet, unspoiled, childlike pla- 
cidity of hers which made her beauty fair and open, like the 
beauty of a child. The sorrow that had whitened her golden 
head had put no dark secrets into her eyes. At seven and forty 
she yet looked the vessel of a white soul. 

“ Colombe has been your child, at least,” she said. 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER . 


28 


Johnny winced; but he smiled as he answered her. 

“Yes, the witch,” he said, “she made me hers from the be- 
ginning. She is hardly less dear to me than you, Phil. And she 
loves me well.” 

“I know. Nearly as well as I do, father.” 

“Some people might think her light, Phil, and a — a — a little 
selfish. We know her better than that, eh?” 

“We know her better than that. She does not love many 
people, though she is so sweet to all.” 

“Only you and me, Phil, and” — again Johnny hesitated — 
“and her mother, of course.” 

“Mamma, of course,” assented Phil. “Not the same way she 
loves us. They are too much alike.” 

“They are too much alike. When I am gone, Phil, you will 
be to them what I have been.” 

“I will try to be,” said the girl steadily. A sharp spasm had 
passed over her frank face, but she refrained from any expression 
of emotion. 

Her father looked at her with pitying tenderness. 

“My good Phil, my brave Phil !” he said, and then averted his 
eyes. 

“ They will be desolate when that happens,” he went on. “Co- 
lumba has always leaned on me, and the child will be heart-broken. 
She was a great happiness to me in the old days, Phil. Be care- 
ful of her, comfort her. She believes in you as she believes in me. 
Take my place toward them, Phil. Be what I have been, what 
I would be.” 

“I will do my best,” said Phil, in a low voice. 

“I am proud of you, Phil. Not every father of a girl twenty 
years old could trust her as I trust you.” 

He lay silent a minute watching her. Then his face took a 
new expression. 

“It is a heavy burden I am putting on your twenty years,” he 
said. “And listen, Phil. I don’t quite mean all I have exacted* 
from you. I don’t want you to be sacrificed, Phil — you under- 


24 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


stand. You are dearer after all. Take care of them, but do not 
stand out of the way if you have a right to be there. Perhaps it 
is not well after all to let others have all the sunshine. It is 
enfeebling, even for them.” 

His voice sank away. They had been more explicit than 
usual with each other, and the effort to speak after long reticence 
had been a strain. He was falling asleep. 

A few weeks after this conversation Johnny Featherstone- 
haugh’s unselfish life came to an end. He died at peace with 
God and his fellow-man, and in great love with his own family. 
Death could hardly take a more inspiriting shape than now when 
it found a man ready to welcome it, secure in the promise of a 
future life and the merits of his Redeemer. “God send us all 
such a death,” said the old priest who had attended his dying 
moments, “and such a harmless life to merit it.” 

One day Phil Featherstonehaugh would come to feel almost 
joyful in her thoughts of the father who had lived and died 
greatly; but at the moment of his death incredulous grief swal- 
lowed up all comfort. She had to fight it alone, on her knees, 
with wide eyes and heart heavier than a stone when at last her 
mother and sister had exhausted themselves in grief that was 
almost despair, and fallen into sleep. What a relief it was 
when sleep at last took the two frenzied creatures to her quiet 
breast. Phil was different. She could not beat with bleeding 
hands against the wall beyond which Johnny Featherstonehaugh 
had passed, out of hearing of those whose call his heart had ever 
leaped to answer. Phil’s grief was a sane one, without the al- 
leviations of exhaustion, and though friends flocked to their help 
there was much no one else but Phil could do. 

At last it was all over, and the blinds were up once more in the 
house on the Mall. Life began again, with a difference, for 
Johnny Featherstonehaugh’s widow and orphans, for the child 
who was the daughter of his body and the child who was only the 
daughter of his heart. 

With a difference, for Time brings his revenges. Dead, Johnny 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


25 


Featherstonehaugh won from his wife what she had denied him 
living. With the curious readiness to shift an opinion or a stand- 
point which Phil had often marvelled at in her mother, she sud- 
denly slammed the door upon the years in which she had been 
Gaston de Ste. Croix’s wife, and the many other years of her 
second wifehood in which she had never let her widowhood slip 
out of her sight. With something like impatience she thrust the 
grief of her girls aside as though none but herself had a right to 
be desolate. In a single night her age showed itself in lines on her 
smooth face which no longer looked too young for its frame of 
white hair. 

Time modified the first violence of her grief, but never again 
was she heard to refer pensively and half-complacently to her 
early trouble. The numerous signs and tokens of remembrance, 
which had been as so many thorns in Johnny Featherstonehaugh’s 
patient heart, disappeared, as Gaston de Ste. Croix’s memory dis- 
appeared somewhere into the background of Mrs. Featherstone- 
haugh’s thoughts. 

Phil saw and marvelled. The change in her mother was genu- 
ine, but it repelled Phil vaguely. Why had she not given him a 
little of this in all the years his heart was hungry? She had 
more real tenderness for Colombe,who grieved to herself as though 
the world only held herself and her trouble. It would pass, said 
Phil, it would pass; one could not think of Colombe as long out 
of the sunshine ; but she had loved the dead man before Phil came 
— the thought brought a pang with it — and her bereavement for 
the time had broken her heart. 

Phil’s ministrations to her mother might be slightly mechani- 
cal, might have a core of hardness in their gentleness, but to 
her' half-sister she devoted herself with a passionate gratitude 
for the sake of a father who while he lived had not been loved 
enough. 

The widow presently reappeared in the world in the blackest 
of black crape, that made a wonderfully effective setting for her 
fair face, to which grief had given a touch of spirituality that 


26 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


perhaps it had lacked before. She excited tenderness and pity 
wherever she went, especially in the hearts of various middle-aged 
and elderly gentlemen, who were not insensible to the fact that 
Johnny Featherstonehaugh had provided comfortably for his 
widow, and that there were only those two fine handsome girls to 
be thought of, whom no man with the heart of a man could possibly 
consider as encumbrances. 

However, Mrs. Featherstonehaugh in her new character soon 
made it evident that it was of no use to sigh for her; and the 
gentlemen, who at first had been declaring her a deuced fine 
woman, added now disparagingly, “but too insensible, by Jove! 
More like a statue than a woman.” 

Phil resented somewhat her mother’s arrogation of grief. As the 
years passed, and she kept the depth of her veil and her crape 
unshortened, Phil often thought to herself that her father would 
not have washed it. He had not counted his sacrifice vain since it 
had kept his wife in the sunshine. How she seemed determined 
to clothe herself in night for his sake, who had rejoiced unselfishly 
in her beauty and her youth, in her untroubled mind, and in the 
fresh colors she wore so becomingly. 

But however Phil might fume, reproaching herself the while, 
Mrs. Featherstonehaugh returned to her old well-pleased self no 
more. She gave up the society which she had adorned, and devoted 
herself to good works. Her drawing-rooms were now the meet- 
ing-places of various charitable societies. When that long last ill- 
ness had gripped Johnny Featherstonehaugh he had been talking 
of moving to one of the Squares, since the Mall was too quiet and 
old-fashioned for his grown-up girls. How that scheme was for- 
gotten. Hone of them had ever really wanted to leave the Mall, 
with its big rooms and the walled-in garden full of fruit trees, 
a glorious old mulberry at its center. How the place was dearer 
than ever from its associations, and there was no more talk of 
leaving it. 

After a time the old friends returned. Mrs. Featherstonehaugh 
had not much time now for sociabilities. Her face shone like an 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER . 


27 

angel’s, as once it had shone to Johnny Featherstonehaugh, in 
hospital wards and prison cells. She had no heart for society, 
and there were plenty of happier women to chaperon her girls 
wherever they would go. 

“ J ohnny’s death,” said old Mr. Maxwell, of Mount Maxwell, 
‘fiias been the salvation of his widow. I never gave her credit for 
so much character and so much heart.” 

Mrs. Maxwell puckered her brows under her cap with its cherry- 
colored ribbons, and smiled mysteriously as she handed her hus- 
band his second cup of tea. 

“The new Columba is the old Columba,” she said. “Her 
conduct has been a marvel of consistency straight through.” 

Mr. Maxwell dropped his newspaper and stared. 

“I don’t understand you, my dear. We used to agree that 
though a very sweet creature she wasn’t half good enough for 
Johnny. Her pose about her first marriage, .you remember, her 
air of having done Johnny an extraordinary favor in marrying 
him, her not knowing how unlike he was to other men in his de- 
votion, her way of taking everything for granted. You have 
surely forgotten.” 

“I have forgotten nothing,” said Mrs. Maxwell, waving away 
discussion, “and I maintain that Columba in her new attitude 
is perfectly consistent. There is no use in explaining. You are 
as blind as a bat, Dom, or as most of your sex where a woman and 
her ways are concerned.” 


CHAPTER III. 

THE CASTLE OF DREAMS. 

Communication's between Castle O’Kelly and the Mall were 
frequent. The Misses O’Kelly had abundant leisure, and belonged 
to a day when letter- writing was still an art to be cultivated. 
Every week a budget in the minute French handwriting the ladies 
had learned at their convent school, came from one or the other 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


28 

to their dear Columba. Visits were exchanged yearly between 
the two houses; and it was a great occasion when the Misses 
O’Kelly would arrive at the Mall dressed in the fashion of thirty 
years before, and with an incredible quantity of eggs and butter, 
oysters, newly caught trout, and perhaps a hare or a couple of 
grouse, to show their town relations what good things Connemara 
could produce. 

Time had dealt lightly with the Misses O’Kelly. Finola, the 
plain-looking one, kept the dark hair and good teeth which had 
always been her best points. She could still endure an amazing 
amount of fatigue, trudging miles a day if need be, though the 
calendar declared her an old woman, and she certainly had not 
been young when her niece Columba left them. 

Peggy had not lost her quaint, helpless prettiness. She had 
the oval face, the large eyes, and the ringlet over each shoulder 
of the Books of Beauty. The frills and furbelows of the sixties 
became Peggy’s faded graces extremely well. She was a gentle 
creature, full of tender sentimentalities, and he would have been 
hard indeed who would have desired to wake her from her dreams 
of youth. 

They were very dear and not at all ridiculous to their great- 
nieces. Perhaps, if anything, they loved Colombe the better of 
the two. It was impossible, when Mrs. Featherstonehaugh had 
become a woman of societies, for her to devote herself personally 
to her aunts as she had been used to do when they came to town 
for their annual fortnight. They could not miss her indeed, 
having the girls, she said; and the girls were right willing to 
devote themselves to the task of entertainment. 

It was Colombe who discovered how Miss Peggy’s heart yearned 
after the fashions and the shops, while the staider Finola liked to 
improve her mind by a visit to a picture-gallery or a museum. It 
was Colombe who, with her French deftness, knew how to give 
Finola’s garments the touch of sobriety which saved them from 
being ridiculous, and to tone down Peggy’s muslins and roses to 
the same end. 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


29 


The ladies never objected to Colombe doing what she liked with 
their belongings. 

Mrs. Featherstonehaugh looked in on them one evening of long 
twilight to find the two young women and the two old women 
absorbed in fashion-papers and chiffons in the pretty room which 
Colombe’s cleverness had fitted up as a sitting-room for herself 
and her sister. 

Colombe was sitting on the floor, a thing she particularly liked 
to do, surrounded by a multitude of bits of pretty ribbon, feathers, 
flowers, and all manner of things. She was holding an airy crea- 
tion of peach-colored chiffon in her hand, and contemplating it 
with pardonable pride. 

“It is a little cap, mamma, for Aunt Peggy to wear at Mrs. 
Maxwell’s party to-morrow evening. It is much prettier than 
one we saw in Grafton Street at a ruinous price, and see, this is 
Aunt Finola’s fichu ! Isn’t it graceful ?” 

Columba smiled. 

“They are very pretty, Colombe,” she said. 

“I wish you would have just such another cap as Aunt Peggy’s. 
I am tired of that stiff white thing. Let me make you one, mamma.” 

Columba still smiled at the charming face. Colombe had the 
privileges of audacity. 

“Not for me, child,” she said. “I am content with my widow’s 
cap so long as I live. Be content with dressing your aunts. The 
result is certainly very satisfactory.” 

She glanced at the soft fichus enfolding the Misses O’Kelly’s 
spare forms, the lace about their wrists, the stately little caps 
where the hair had been wont to show unbecomingly thin. These 
had not been worn a day or two ago, and were Colombe’s doings. 

The ladies always deferred to Colombe’s French taste, and ac- 
cepted innovations at her hands, a suggestion of which from any 
one else had offended them. 

“It seems a foolish thing to busy yourself with, Colombe,” she 
said. “But you are young. Grave things may wait till you are 
older.” 


30 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


“Ah,” said Colombe, “if I might choose my career ! Do you 
know what it would be? I should choose to be lady’s maid to a 
great lady, but not so great as to have a new frock for every day. I 
should love to make the old frocks new, so that madam need never 
wear the same thing twice. And I should like her not to be too 
handsome, so that I might make her beautiful.” 

“ A poor ambition, child,” said the mother, with her hand on 
the door-handle. 

“It would be Colombe’s way of ministering,” said Phil; while 
the Misses O’Kelly listened, not altogether comprehending the 
spirit of the conversation. 

Mrs. Featherstonehaugh had for some years left Castle O’Kelly 
unvisited. She preferred to remain in town most of the summer, 
though the moist heat of a cycle of hot summers was wont to 
wither her roses, and to make her look tired and faded when her 
daughters came back blooming from the Connaught bogs and their 
walking and riding, mountain-climbing and sea-fishing. She 
worked indefatigably during weather which made every living 
thing sleepy except the insect tribe, for to the fly and gnat peoples 
it seemed to impart a deadly energy. 

Mrs. Featherstonehaugh wore her exhaustion and the black 
circles under her eyes with the air of a decoration. She had earned 
the right to them by her days and nights of work, her visiting the 
sick and poor in foul places, her devotion to the administrative 
work of her societies for which she had developed a passion. She 
liked to feel the contrast between herself and her girls, when they 
came back, sunburned, with firm, peachy cheeks and bright eyes. If 
she could she would not have had the summers a whit less ex- 
hausting so far as she personally was concerned; for her August 
and the seaside came all too soon. 

There came a summer when the plans were somewhat 
changed. The Maxwells, who were devoted to Columba’s girls, 
never having had any children of their own, had offered to take 
Phil and Colombe to Italy. They were to go in mid-May, and return 
before summer had loosed the tourist season upon the gray 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


31 


churches, the picture-galleries, the olive and ilex groves, the 
vineyards and mountains, the rivered valleys. 

It was exquisitely desirable, but June had always brought the 
annual visit to Castle O’Kelly, which extended to August when 
the Featherstonehaugh household left the Mall for Dalkey. 

There was a generous rivalry between the two girls as to which 
should have the Italian tour. Neither thought of postponing 
Castle O’Kelly. Their visit was the great event of the year to their 
great-aunts. Something of the simplicity of children had re- 
mained with the Misses O’Kelly; and Phil had never forgotten 
how once, having telegraphed a postponement of her visit for a 
week, she had after all at the last moment been enabled to start 
as she had originally intended. Arriving unexpectedly she had 
found the two ladies seated at a board spread with the dainties 
which had been intended for herself, making no pretence at eat- 
ing, but sad and silent. The patience of ten months could not 
endure a further probation of a week. 

Phil remembered further the transformation which her unex- 
pected coming had wrought. Now she would be no party to any 
postponement. Colombe must go with the Maxwells, and join 
her at Castle O’Kelly when she returned, and tell her all about it. 

Colombe resisted for a time, but Phil had the stronger will. Un- 
less she gave in of her own accord the victory was sure to be Phil’s. 
In this case she did not give in ; and she hardly felt a pang when 
she sent off Colombe, charming in a homespun travelling dress of 
gray-blue to see Italy with those dear old friends, the Maxwells. 

A fortnight later she kissed her mother’s cheek, bade her, some- 
what uselessly, not to overwork till they came back in mid- August, 
to carry her for a brief, unwelcome respite to the seaside, sprang 
upon her outside car and a little later was leisurely running 
through the Bog of Allen in a train which gave its passengers time 
and to spare for all that was to be seen. 

It was quite evening when she reached Castle O’Kelly, and a 
young moon was climbing up behind copper-colored clouds as the 
mail car dropped her at the cross roads where her aunts, with 


32 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


gauze veils wisped round their pork-pie hats and the usual frilled 
frocks, were waiting to take her into their arms, and their little 
shandrydan of a governess cart. 

“This is a pleasant change after the mail car,” said Phil, set- 
tling herself into the little old vehicle, every lump and bump in 
the cushions of which she knew by heart. 

“We always think the mail car so very comfortable,” said 
Peggy, with a slightly disappointed air. Finola was so busy try- 
ing to make Tim Healy, the pony, start, that she could not take 
part in the conversation. “And Willie McGroarty is such an agree- 
able man, always ready to match a piece of ribbon in Galway, or 
bring us a bit of fresh meat, or do anything we ask him. You 
owe it to him that you’ll have a little bit of mutton for your din- 
ner, my dear.” 

“And a trout, I hope, Aunt Peggy. I’m very hungry after 
my thirty miles’ drive, to say nothing of the endless train journey. 
Willie was most polite. I was delighted to see his curly head and 
beaming smile awaiting me at Mack’s Hotel. Only I was the 
sole passenger, and the other side of the car was occupied with 
empty parcel-post hampers, so that that side was up in the sky, 
and my feet were trailing the ground all the time. I’d never have 
kept on only I’m used to sticking on. You remember the gray 
mare, Aunt Fin? Willie drove her Majesty’s mail in fine style, 
and kept looking round now and again to ask me if I was keeping 
on at all, and to assure me that no one ever fell off his car, only 
English tourists, ‘and the road does be covered with them.’ ” 

“You poor child,” said Miss Peggy, “I’m afraid you must have 
been very wretched. Did you hear, Finola? Phil’s feet were 
dragging the ground the whole road from Galway.” 

“If the League hears of it they’ll call it land grabbing,” said 
her sister, abruptly. “Ah! that’s right, Tim, my boy!” as the 
pony broke into a canter. “You’ve found out at last that I’m 
only taking you the way you like to go yourself. He’s more like 
his namesake than ever, Phil, a hard one to drive and always has 
his own way.” 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER . 


33 


“Paddy McNeill sent a basket of trout this morning when he 
heard yon were coming,” said Miss Peggy. “We couldn’t very well 
refuse it, you know, though the fishing of the Carra has been let to 
a Mr. Lismore, a gentleman from the South. And the spring 
chickens are just coming in. We’ll have plenty for you to eat, 
to say nothing of the mutton.” 

“I shan’t grumble if I have trout — even poached trout, — and 
chickens,” laughed Phil. “I think I’ll let you and Aunt Fin eat 
up all the mutton.” 

Miss Peggy’s face fell. 

“ Of course, my dear, you can have fresh meat whenever you 
like. We are apt to forget that it is such a treat to us. We 
can’t get it, of course, unless we send to Galway, or sometimes 
when Mr. Featherstonehaugh kills a sheep and kindly sends us a 
present of a piece. Well, what matter? Father Tom is coming 
to dinner and Mr. Featherstonehaugh as well. We told them 
you’d be too tired, but they would come.” 

“I should never be too tired for Uncle Ralph and Father Tom,” 
said Phil gayly. “I think it is like your selfishness to want to 
exclude them. The air is delicious here, just like wine.” 

“Here we are,” said Miss Finola, drawing up at her own 
dilapidated gates. “Tim has done very well ; a mile and a half in 
twenty-five minutes, and he wouldn’t go at all for the first half 
of the journey. I think he’s beginning to find out that he’s got a 
firm hand over him.” 

“So he ought,” said Phil. “He’s twenty-five years old, and you 
broke him in yourself and have driven him ever since. He’s a 
credit to the country — like his namesake. I say, Mrs. MacNally 
has got a new baby.” 

The lodge-woman, after vainly endeavoring to open the gates, 
had set down her baby on the grass, and was lifting them back. 

“That’s a very pretty baby, Mrs. MacNally,” Phil called out, 
“and as fat as all his brothers and sisters. I hope you’re well, 
Mrs. MacNally. I hope Pat has got a good job at the hay-mak- 
ing ; and that J ohnny’s doing well at the school.” 


34 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


“Very well, Miss Phil,” the woman called back, her sunburned 
face lighting up with pleasure. “Pat’ll be proud to hear that 
you remembered him. He has grand wages where he is over in 
England for the hay harvest.” 

“How, wasn’t it very observant of Phil to notice Mrs. Mac- 
Hally’s baby?” said Miss Peggy to Miss Finola, with simple ad- 
miration. “That’s what makes the people fond of you, my dear.” 

“I couldn’t help it,” said Phil, abashed, as at undeserved praise. 
“The baby was the very same age as the one Mrs. MacHally had 
last year; and of course I knew it couldn’t be the same. That 
was last year’s, I suppose, pulling at her skirt ?” 

“Ho, that was the one of the year before last. Last year’s was 
sitting in the hamper by the door with the hen. He and the hen 
keep each other warm ; and there’s hardly a day of the year Mrs. 
MacHally hasn’t got a fresh egg.” 

“That’s a wrinkle to fowl-keepers,” laughed Phil. “Mrs. Mac- 
Hally must have a fine tribe of them now. I saw Four- Years-Old 
looking out of the window.” 

“Ah, indeed, the poor thing,” said Peggy, “she has nine, 
all happy and healthy. As she says, God never sends a mouth to be 
fed but He sends something to put in it. But here’s your old friend. 
Bodkin, coming out to welcome you. He’s disappointed at 
Colombe not coming, but as he remarked, ‘half a loaf’s better than 
no bread.’ ” 

The old man-servant, with hair white as though he powdered it 
about his rosy cheeks, came down to take Phil’s modest luggage 
which had been piled up in a spare corner of the cart. 

“ ’Tis good for sore eyes to see you, Miss Phil,” he said. “We’ve 
all been longin’ for the day, though we miss pretty Miss Colombe. 
I hope she’s well, miss, and the mistress herself.” 

“All well, and Miss Colombe will be here just about the time 
that you begin to get tired of me, Bodkin.” 

“Sure that would be never, miss. Hot but what we’ll be glad 
to see her. I hope the ladies were in time for you. You never 
can depend on that Tim.” 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


35 


“Tim did very well indeed, Bodkin,” said Miss Finola, standing 
up for her spoiled pet. 

“It took me an hour and three-quarters st’alin’ behind him 
round the fields wid a hatful of oats before I could coax him to 
me,” grumbled the old man. “I didn’t know but if he took a 
tantrum on the road, maybe the dinner ’ud be spoilt on yez.” 

“He went beautifully and he came back beautifully,” said the 
pony’s mistress. 

“The mail car must have been after her time,” said Bodkin 
unbelievingly. 

Phil had run up the steps and was kneeling down now, the 
center of a circle of affectionate dogs, licking and pawing her. 

“She’s as fond of the bastes as ever,” went on old Bodkin. 
“An’ see the sinse of them ! The divil ever Tim ’ud have stirred 
a foot wid them trunks on his back if he hadn’t known them for 
Miss Phil’s. He’s the aisiest offended baste ever I see in regard 
to what he’ll consent to carry.” 

Up in the wide bare room which was hers by prescriptive right 
Phil stood by the open window and drew in long breaths of the 
sea and the mountain air. 

Castle O’Kelly stood at the head of the glen on a plateau high 
in the hillside. Behind it tall slender woods, with trout streams 
leaping from boulder to boulder, climbed the mountain-side. In 
front the ground sloped steeply — green hillside fields, through 
which an avenue of the same slender birch and fir trees followed 
the line of a stream, till a mile away the fields had become 
level with the sea, and was a place of bog and salt marshes. 

A tower at the corner of the house gave it its title of castle. 
It was older than the main building, and had rooms hollowed in 
its enormous masonry. Windows broken out to light the rooms 
gave the tower a homely aspect. It was entered from the house 
by a little door behind the tall clock case in the morning-room, 
a little door giving on an incredibly tiny and corkscrewy stair- 
case. You might sit an hour in the morning-room and never 
discover that door, so tiny was it and so hidden. 


36 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


The tower and its entrance had figured in all Phil’s and 
Colombe’s fairy-tales. It was the castle of the Sleeping Beauty, 
and the tower whence Rodhaver let down her hair. It stood in 
the garden to which the kind Beast brought his wedded Beauty; 
and it was the home of innumerable giants. In the morning- 
room there was a queer, ancient, damp smell, a sniff of which made 
Phil a child once more. She had only to shut her eyes and she 
was a lanky five-year-old child, sitting at the morning-room table 
of a wet day, and playing with Aunt Peggy’s mother-o’-pearl 
reels and bobbins, the fascinating contents of the spinster’s work- 
box, or ranging in order the wonderful Indian chessmen the 
same kind soul had produced for her delight. 

Phil had still a fearsome pleasure in thinking of what it would 
be like to sleep in the tower. Not that she had ever dared it. 
Her room was in the pleasant, modern part of the house which 
had wide windows with green persiennes overlooking the little 
overgrown lawn and the walled garden full of apple trees at one 
side, and the delightful path of the river to the sea. 

The room was scrubbed as white as freestone could make it, 
and had the luxury of a rag carpet, which Miss Peggy had learned 
how to make from an ancient volume, entitled, The Lady's Friend. 
The spindle-shanked dressing table, the little corner washstand 
with its jug and basin that did not match, the bed, the tall half- 
ruined chairs were islands on the sea of floor. But the place 
had an air austere and delicate. The Lady Poverty wore here her 
most winning aspect. The faded curtains were beautiful old 
chintz ; the patchwork quilt which covered a bed of softest feathers, 
somewhat of a trial to Phil, fresh from her mattress, had delicious 
bits of brocade and organdie among its parts; a cracked china 
jug of lordly proportions stood full of roses and sweet-briar in 
the grate. 

A bare, spiritual place full of sweetness of wind and flowers, 
it afforded the most refreshing slumbers Phil had known since 
she was a small child, when she had opened her eyes on the same 
ancient crucifix which was the sole adornment of the lofty walls. 


























































































. 

























HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


39 


CHAPTER IV. 

THE STORM. 

Old Mr. Featherstonehaugh took in Miss Peggy as by prescrip- 
tive right to dinner. Father Tom Kirwan went first with her 
sister. Phil had perforce to go in alone. 

“ Never mind, Phil,” said Father Tom, sparkling at the girl 
he had known from babyhood through his gold-rimmed glasses, 
“ you won’t be long without a bachelor. There is one on his way 
this minute to show the Dublin bucks how dull they are.” 

“ I always thought Castle O’Kelly grew everything nice but 
bachelors,” said Phil, settling cheerfully to her grilled trout, whose 
pink flesh showed most appetizingly through his charred skin. 
Had not Father Tom the immemorial right of the Irish country 
priest to be jocular with young folk ? 

“ You’re right there, Phil,” said the priest. “ If I was de- 
pending on the marriage fees to keep me, I’d be in worse condition 
to-day. I haven’t had a marriage this twelvemonth that could 
pay me half-a-crown.” 

“ But who is the bachelor ? ” asked Phil. 

“Ah, I thought that would interest her” — in a gay aside to 
the elderly folk. “ He is a very good-looking lad, and a college- 
bred gentleman, as they say in these parts. He is fairly well en- 
dowed with this world’s goods, and has a pretty spot of his own on 
the Shannon. Let alone that, he’s a good lad, the pride and hope 
of his widowed mother.” 

“ Too satisfactory by half,” said Phil. “ Has he no faults? ” 

“ I’ll leave you to find them out ; and his virtues in detail.” 

“ Oh, I’m not interested.” 

“ Wait till you see him, Phil ! ” 

“ Who is he, Father Tom? ” put in Miss Finola. 

“ He’s the new tenant of Mr. Blake O’Hara’s shooting-lodge at 
Acton, Ross Lismore. His mother happens to be an old friend of 
mine, and I’ve known the boy since his infancy, though perhaps 
my reports of him reach me from a somewhat prejudiced source.” 


40 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


“ That’s better/’ said Phil, with a pretended sigh of relief. 
“ Of course his mother would make the best possible of him.” 

“ I’m glad he is pleasant/’ said Miss Peggy. “ It is so dis- 
agreeable when one can not be neighborly with the neighbors.” 

“ It’s not in you to ostracize any one, ma’am, though I wouldn’t 
answer for Miss Fin,” said the priest, who always viewed the. 
Misses O’Kelly with a certain tender amusement. 

“ Peggy can be very stiff and cold when she likes,” interjected 
Miss Finola. “You always ascribe all the bad qualities to me, 
Father Tom.” 

“ Who’d have a better right, considering how long I’ve known 
you ? ” said the priest. 

“ I’m glad Acton is to be occupied,” said Mr. Featherstone- 
haugh. “ I’ve missed a man to shoot with and smoke with since 
Blake O’Hara left the place empty.” 

“ Aye,” said the priest sympathetically. “ ’Tis hard on you. 
I often wondered what kept you in these wilds at all, at all, with 
not an adult male able to do more than read his letters except 
yourself and myself and Parson Thornhill. Thornhill is a good 
fellow, and plenty of time to spare, seeing that himself and his con- 
gregation and the clerk and the sexton only make six all told. ’Tis 
a thousand pities Thornhill isn’t a bit nearer to us.” 

“ He’d be a hand too many for whist,” said Mr. Featherstone- 
haugh, comforting himself for what couldn’t be helped. 

“ Miss Peggy would always stay out — wouldn’t you, ma’am ? 
She’d be quite happy watching your hand, Featherstonehaugh. 
Not like Miss Fin, that must always have a hand in everything.” 

“ The young gentleman will make one too many,” said Miss 
Finola, passing by Father Tom’s playful jest at her expense. 

“ Not while your niece is here, ma’am. Would he be wasting 
his time playing cards with a pair of fogies like me and Feather- 
stonehaugh? He’ll take Phil off our hands. We sha’n’t have to 
be doing the polite to her any longer.” 

“As though you ever did the polite to me in all your life, 
Father Tom!” said Phil, indignantly. 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


41 


“ When is Lismore coming ? ” asked Mr. Featherstonehaugh. 

“ He’s on his way now. I heard from his mother to-day. He’s 
taking the yacht round. She’ll lie in Croagh Harbor. He ought 
to be somewhere off the coast of Clare to-night.” 

“ 0 dear, I hope he’ll have fine weather. It looked rather 
threatening to-night,” said Miss Peggy, who was full of soft good- 
will and concern for all the children of Adam. 

“ Those purple clouds over Slieve Carn did look rather threat- 
ening,” said the priest. “ Only for Phil, and that you made such 
a point of it, Miss Fin, I’d have been after postponing dining with 
you till to-morrow.” 

“ You know. Father Tom, I really asked you for to-morrow, 
but you said you’d rather come to-night, lest I’d change my mind 
before to-morrow.” 

“ So you did, now I think of it. Never mind my jokes. Miss 
Fin. I’ll likely have a sick call to-night when I go back, and have 
to take the bridle-path over Slieve Carn. Sure it isn’t minding 
thunder and lightning I’d be.” 

“ Ah,” said Miss Peggy, “ there’s the wind getting up. It 
will blow us those thunderclouds sure enough.” 

“ It won’t come before morning,” said Father Tom. “ It will 
be a summer storm, short and sudden. I’ll likely be back from 
poor Andy Kelleher before it breaks.” 

“ Oh,” said Miss Peggy, “ I hope so. I shouldn’t like to think 
of you on Slieve Carn in the storm.” 

“ ’Tis the Lord’s business, ma’am,” said the priest, with sud- 
den gravity, “.and the storm is His.” 

Then his face grew merry again. 

“ Maybe if I had a curate, ’tis sending him I’d be in my place,” 
he said. 

“ If you had, you’d be killing yourself with work all the same,” 
said Miss Finola. 

“ Maybe the Bishop knows me better than you, ma’am, and 
that’s why he won’t give me a curate.” 

The wind suddenly swept up the valley with a shriek, fled about 


42 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


the gables of Castle O’Kelly as though some spirit were in pursuit 
of it, clapped its wings an instant overhead, and then suddenly 
was still. 

“I remember a storm once in June,” said Miss Finola. “It 
was the time the American liner went ashore off Carndhu Point. 
It came like this after a month of hot weather. It was as bad as 
any winter storm I ever remember. The wind nearly unroofed the 
village, and it was a fortunate thing that there had been an im- 
mense haul of mackerel a few nights before, so that the men were 
curing all they could and none of the boats were out. A big wave, 
like a tidal-wave, took up the boats that were lying on the beach — 
for no one thought of a great storm in midsummer — and smashed 
them like matchwood. The nets that had been drying in the sun 
were torn to pieces where they were not carried away. I remem- 
ber the distress the following winter. Our dear father was alive 
then.” 

“ Ah, ma’am,” said the priest, “ we who have lived long enough 
have all sad things in our memories.” 

The wind shrieked and clapped again, and suddenly the gray 
dusk outside the window flashed white. 

“ It is sheet lightning,” said Mr. Featherstonehaugh, rising to 
draw the blinds. “ There is no thunder with it.” 

As he came back to the table he laid a reassuring hand on Miss 
Peggy’s, which were clasped in her lap. She was always fright- 
ened in a thunderstorm. 

As though to contradict him, a rattle and roar of thunder fol- 
lowed the lightning. Hard upon it came the shrieking of the 
wind. 

“ We were caught on Lough Heagh once in a storm like this, 
when I was young,” said Miss Finola. “ We were all but capsized, 
only fortunately the wind seized the sail of our little yacht and tore 
it to rags and tatters. The yacht righted herself then, and we 
were driven on to the shore. I have never cared to be in a yacht 
since.” 

Miss Peggy had been sitting with her eyes covered with one 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


43 


hand. The other was held firmly clasped in Mr. Featherstone- 
haugh’s. No one thought it strange: the old couple had so long 
been lovers. 

Now she spoke without uncovering her eyes. 

“ That poor boy is out in the storm/’ she said, in an awed 
whisper. “ I dread those yachts. And there are terrible cliffs 
along the coast.” 

“ The Lord bring him safely,” said Miss Fin. 

“ Amen ! ” added Father Tom. “ But he wouldn’t thank us 
for spoiling our dinner on his account. I’d like another slice off 
the leg. Miss Fin. Featherstonehaugh, make Miss Peggy drink a 
glass of the port. ’Tis the wrong time for it, but she looks as if 
she’d come to the end of her dinner.” 

Mr. Featherstonehaugh poured out a glass of the port. It was 
from his own cellar, nearly the last of a precious brand. He held 
it to Miss Peggy’s lips, and she drank it. Meanwhile Bodkin had 
come in and shut the shutters and lit the lamps. 

“ The storm’s travellin’ away from us round the mountains,” 
he said, with the familiarity of an old servant, and an Irish 
servant to boot. “ The worst of it is over. Miss Peggy, let alone 
that I’ve shut it out.” 

As he changed the plates, he muttered to himself : 

“ It’ll come back by way of the same mountains before mornin’, 
or I know nothin’ about the ways of it.” 

The thunder was certainly more distant, crashing and tearing 
among the amphitheater of hills. Miss Peggy presently uncov- 
ered her eyes, and sat very pale, averting her gaze from the win- 
dows, which in spite of the shutters showed running lines of light 
every instant. 

After dinner they adjourned to the drawing-room. Heavy 
rain had followed upon the thunder, and the wind seemed to have 
fallen, or the roar of the rain had drowned its voice. 

Phil lingered a moment behind the rest to gaze from the stair- 
case window upon the storm. Green lightning lit the valley as she 
looked. She saw the groaning trees lashed to earth. Under the 


44 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER . 


window at which she stood she saw cattle and sheep huddled to the 
house as if for protection and companionship. The air was full of 
the steady rush of falling waters, till the thunder tore the duller 
sound with a ripping and crackling noise. Out at sea she saw 
capes and cliffs in sudden prominence, then plunged back in dark- 
ness. The young moon was dead, drowned in the floods, perhaps. 
The river was racing down the valley, all curls and swirls of foam, 
as the lightning revealed it. 

They were playing a game of whist half-heartedly in the draw- 
ing-room. 

Phil seated herself at the piano, and began to play something 
with crashing chords, a wild, troubled thing by a new Hungarian 
composer that harmonized strangely well with the cries of the 
storm. While she played she thought of the Atlantic as she had 
seen it revealed by the lightning, and she was afraid. 

Suddenly she was aware that Father Tom was standing behind 
her. The first game of the rubber had been played, and Miss Fin 
was leisurely shuffling the cards preparatory to her deal. 

“ Play something lively, Phil,” he said. “ ‘ Planxty Kelly/ 
or ‘ The Wind that Shakes the Barley.’ I don’t like those new 
music-makers of' yours. They belong to a world left alone.” 

“You feel it?” said Phil, surprised. “It seemed to come 
naturally to my fingers. It has the desolation of the sea and the 
wind in it. Tell me. Father Tom — one has to think of all souls 
at sea a night like this — your friend, Mr. Lismore, he is an expert 
yachtsman ? ” 

“ You take after your Aunt Peggy,” said the priest, without a 
hint of the old raillery. “ Be easy, child ! He is an expert yachts- 
man. He has lived half his life on sea, and is accustomed to take 
the yacht around our rocky coasts. Besides, the storm may not 
have struck him. Our mountains often draw the storms to them. 
And if it has, the wind is in his favor.” 

“ The cards are dealt. Father Tom,” called Miss Finola, as Phil 
broke into the irresistible dance-music of “ The Wind that Shakes 
the Barley.” But while her fingers flew hither and thither over 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER . 


45 


the keys, and the mad merriment of the music answered the 
thunder, Phil, looking straight before her, saw another vision than 
the high back of the ancient piano, with her great-grandmother s 
framed sampler above it. 

Why should the possible peril of a stranger have such power to 
trouble her? Her vision was of Boss Lismore’s yacht driven be- 
fore the gale, drifting on to the treacherous rift of rocks outside 
Croagh Harbor, dashed to pieces against the wall of impenetrable 
cliff that lay to north and southward of the little bay. 

The thunder had died away in distance before she slept, but 
the vision of the yacht and the cries of drowning men disturbed 
her dreams. 

She awoke somewhere in the early morning, to find that the 
storm had returned to them around the amphitheater of hills with 
tenfold violence. The peals of thunder and the incessant flashes 
of chain and forked lightning were sufficient to account for the 
terror which had set her heart beating in the appalling fear and 
horror of dreams. 

But it was not the storm had awakened her. Her Aunt Finola 
was standing by the bedside, shaking her by the shoulder. 

“ Wake up, Phil,” she said. “ You’ve had a nightmare, and 
have been groaning horribly. Pm not surprised. Wake up, dear. 
There’s a vessel coming ashore off Croagh; we are afraid she will 
be wrecked.” 

Phil sprang out of bed as another flash of lightning lit the 
room. 

“ I’ve been dreaming of it,” she said, beginning to dress her- 
self. “Is the village awake?” 

“I don’t know. Ralph Featherstonehaugh is going to see 
what can be done. Ho boat could live in such a storm. How 
lucky he stayed last night ! ” 

“ Is Aunt Peggy by herself ? ” 

“ She is fast asleep. I had been up with her. She was so 
much disturbed that I was obliged to give her Dr. MacNevin’s 
composing draught- I don’t think she will wake.” 


46 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER . 


“ They will have no provision for shipwrecked men in the vil- 
lage. They had better be brought here. Have fires lit and plenty 
of blankets ready. Aunt Fin.” 

“ But you, child?” 

“ I am going with Uncle Ralph.” 

“ In this storm ? Are you mad, Phil ? ” 

“ The storm is nearly spent and I do not fear it in the least. 
Send Bodkin after us with the cart and some blankets. You have 
a bottle of brandy, Aunt Fin ? ” 

“ Ralph Featherstonehaugh does not believe a soul will be 
saved. You will be exposing yourself uselessly, Phil.” 

“ I must be there all the same.” 

Phil was donning a soft tweed cap by this time. She had 
dressed with lightning quickness. 

“ Don’t be frightened, Aunt Fin,” she said. “ See, the storm 
is dying away ! And there is the first whiteness of dawn in the 
East. I think we shall save life. Forgive me for going against 
your will. Aunt Fin. You know I am not the useless sort or I 
should not dream of inflicting myself on those who were ready to 
help.” 

A few minutes more and Phil, with her hands in her pockets 
and her cap pressed down over her eyes, was racing through the 
avenue of trees that led to the low-lying land and the village. 
She knew every step of it even in the dark, but it was lit now and 
again by the lightning that was traveling away beyond the range 
of mountains. 

“ I had to come. Uncle Ralph,” she said, thrusting her hand 
suddenly through the arm of Mr. Featherstonehaugh, who was 
standing, the center of a group of fishermen, watching the wreck. 

“ Ah, is it you, Phil ? ” he said, without surprise. “ I’m sorry 
you’ve come, my girl. This is going to be a bad job — a bad job, 
I’m afraid. Women had better be out of it.” 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


47 


CHAPTER V. 

THE WRECK. 

The vessel was between the reef and the cliffs. She had 
drifted through a gap in the reef, to be the plaything of the churn- 
ing waves between it and the treacherous bed of sand that lay be- 
low the terrible rock-face of the cliffs of Carndhu. She looked a 
little thing and frail to withstand even for a moment the tremen- 
dous forces that were set against her. Now she came on head fore- 
most against the sands, was sucked up with the waves, and then 
sent rushing back against the reef behind. It was like the play of 
giants with a child. 

The group of watching men and women stood huddled together 
in the gray dawn on that bed of sand below Carndhu. To the left 
of them lay the little harbor and the fishing village, with a starve- 
ling ray of light in every window. No one was at home except 
the very old and the sick and the young children. Looking round 
on the familiar faces, strange in the cold, creeping light, Phil 
recognized nearly all the inhabitants of the village — women with 
shawls over their heads, men with soft caps pulled down on their 
brows, every face looking one way. 

“ What do you make her out to be, Phelimy ? " asked Mr. 
Featherstonehaugh of the oldest of the fishermen. 

“ As near as I can say a sailing vessel of about ten tons, your 
honor. There isn't many like her comes our way. As like as 
not she's got blown out of her course." 

“ It's the yacht Father Tom spoke about," said Phil, against 
her uncle's ear. “ Can nothing be done, Uncle Ralph ? " 

“Look for yourself, child," Mr. Featherstonehaugh said, 
pointing to the yeasty stretch of waters. “ No boat such as we 
have could live ten minutes in such a sea." 

“ And there is no life-boat," she groaned. 

“None within five miles of us. The vessel will be gone to 
pieces long, long before a message could reach them." 

“Are they to perish there?" said Phil, shivering by his side. 


48 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


“ There is only one chance,” he said, “ and we are waiting for 
that. If the boat grounds, some of them may be washed up still 
alive. We shall have to fight the waves for them, but there are 
plenty of men here ready to do that.” 

“ Aye, for sure, sir,” said Phelimy. “ We won’t let them be 
drownded before our eyes if we can help it.” 

“ What will they do, Uncle Ralph ? ” 

He looked down at her face, pale, and wet with sea-spray. 

“ Look along the rope, Phil, and you will see.” 

“ Ah ! ” She peered through the steadily growing light and 
understood. The fishermen, whom she had imagined to be stand- 
ing aimlessly grouped, had, she saw now, for a center, nine or 
ten strong fellows roped together with a stout rope. They were 
standing at the edge of the waves. 

The nearest man, who was Phelimy’s son, Con, a great, brawny, 
kindly giant, turned to smile at her. He had rather guessed at 
than heard her words. 

“ I think she’ll ground soon, miss,” he said. “ Then they’ll 
fling themselves overboard. ’Tisn’t waitin’ to be caught by the 
masts they’ll be. They’ll come on then wid the waves, an’ meself 
an’ these other boys’ll be out there to meet them, an’ bring them 
in alive, if it’s the will of God.” 

“ God grant it, Con ! ” said Phil, fervently. “ Can any one 
see how many are aboard ? ” 

“ There’ll be three or four, by the size of her ; but we can see 
nothin’ by this light — ’tis worse than the dark almost. She was 
showin’ a light whin first we caught sight of her. How ’tis gone; 
washed out of her wid the say, I suppose.” 

“ God bless the work ! ” said a voice at her elbow. She turned 
and saw Father Tom Kirwan. 

“ This is a terrible business,” he said. “ I’ve only just got 
back from the sick-call to poor Kelleher. I came as soon as I 
heard there was a WTeck.” 

“ Oh, Father Tom,” said Phil. “ Do you suppose it is your 
friend’s yacht?” 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


49 


“I’ve been thinking of it, child; it may be. Vessels of that 
size aren’t common along the coast, nor any vessels bigger than 
fishing-smacks, for the matter of that. Poor Grace Lismore ! 
He’s an only son, Phil. Ah, well, well ; sure he’s in the hands of 
God ! ” 

He left them and went toward the line of men. Looking after 
him, Phil noticed the eager faces turned to him. She was hardly 
surprised to see the men who were roped together fall on their 
knees. She saw his hands uplifted with a gesture of absolution. 
Then the men were on their feet again. 

“ They will go the happier for that, poor lads,” he said, return- 
ing to Phil’s side. 

They stood for a few minutes longer watching the vessel, less 
ghostly as the daylight widened, drifting helplessly before the wind 
and the waves. How and again a sharp cry broke from one of the 
women, or a muttered exclamation from one of the men. Phelimy 
presently announced that with the aid of an old glass he had 
found out that there were three men and a boy on board, steadying 
themselves by the mast. 

“ They’ll take to the water for it,” he said, “ the minit they get 
near enough. Steady, boys, for I think the next big wave’ll lodge 
her in the sand.” 

He had no need for the admonition. Looking along the line 
of men, which was now extending out into the water, Phil saw the 
quiet, easy-going, placid faces she knew set toward the wreck, 
grim as iron. 

She turned to speak to Father Tom, but there was a shout 
from the people about her. An enormous wave was. rushing 
toward the sands, carrying the vessel with it as though it were a 
splinter of wood. Another instant, and, with the attitude of a 
charging bull, she came on, plunging bow foremost, and embed- 
ding herself deep in the sand. There was a shrill scream, a sound 
like the cracking of many timbers ; then the line of men was far 
out in the foam, their heads bobbing about like so many corks when 
they could be seen, though the spray hid them for the greater part. 


50 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


Phil, clinging to her uncle’s arm, gripped it more tightly than 
she knew. For an instant she could not breathe: the sound of 
many waters in her ears seemed to deafen and confuse all her 
senses. Then the grim line of men on the beach holding the rope 
came into her consciousness again. Around her there was a deadly 
silence. There was not a cry from the women. They were watch- 
ing their men in the trough of the sea. Father Tom stood with 
his hands raised, as though he would draw mercy upon his people. 

Then the rope grew taut. They were hauling in the line. 
Gasping and half-drowned, the rescuing party were dragged back 
to shore. What had they brought out of the sea? Every one 
crowded about them. Con Hogan was dragging something with 
him — something that lay horribly limp and helpless. Another of 
the men had his hands in a boy’s hair. 

Hastily the men were relieved of their burdens, and Phil, 
pressing into the group, saw a young man lying stretched on the 
sand. Father Tom was leaning over him, and she heard a sharp 
cry break from his lips. She did not need to be told that it was a 
cry of recognition. 

“ His head is hurt/’ said the priest. “ Some of the wreckage 
must have struck him.” 

He lifted his hand, and there was blood on it. 

“ I think I can make a bandage,” said Phil. 

She wondered at her own coolness. Turning to Mr. Feather- 
stonehaugh, she asked him for his handkerchief. 

“ It is the best we can do for the present,” she said, folding the 
big white silk muffler, and bandaging the unconscious head. “Of 
course, there must be a doctor as soon as possible.” 

She kept her arm under the head after she had bandaged it. 
Kneeling so, she handed the brandy-flask to the priest. 

“ Ah,” he said, “ it was well done to bring this. Now, lift his 
head a little.” 

She did as he bade her, and he got some brandy between the 
clenched teeth. Then he handed the flask to Mr. Featherstone- 
haugh, who did the like with the boy. 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


51 


“We must get them out of these wet things and to a fire at 
once. Aunt Fin will have everything ready,” Phil said. 

The priest lifted his head. He had been feeling for any pulsa- 
tion in the drowned man. How his face was lit up with hope. 

“ I think he is living,” he said. “ 1 am certain I felt his heart 
beat.” 

The day had come now in a green dawn that made the faces of 
the drowned and the watchers almost equally ghastly. 

Phelimy Hogan was kneeling, chafing the feet, which he had 
stripped and laid in one of the women’s shawls. He was holding 
them to his breast with a curious womanly tenderness. As Phil 
looked at him, oddly struck by it, he looked back at her, and his 
old eyes burned through tears. 

“ We know how to trate drownded people,” he said. “ WeTe 
used to it. I remember a mornin’ like this, an’ a boy like this, just 
about the age o’ this wan. He was my eldest. He’d be twenty- 
eight come Lady Day if he’d lived — Lady Day in harvest; that 
was the day he came home. I sat just like this, warmin’ his feet 
in my breast an’ rabbin’ them wid my hands ; but I couldn’t get 
them warm — the cowld of death was in them. I was glad his 
mother was gone then. Mothers do be terrible fond of th’ eldest 
one, Miss Phil.” 

“ This is an only son,” Phil said, leaning toward him. She 
felt even her sympathy frozen. “ And his mother a widow. Will 
he live, Phelimy ? ” 

“ His feet is limber enough ; not like Patrick’s. I think he’ll 
come to.” 

“ And the others ? ” 

Phil looked out on the gray-green waste of waters, still flinging 
their angry crests toward heaven. 

“ The others ’ll maybe be flung up here in a day or two, if the 
tide doesn’t carry them out to say. We may be thankful for what 
is. If the rope had bruk now, I’d have been a childless man.” 

They lifted the two figures into the cart, where they lay side by 
side, their faces turned to the cold light and their figures horribly 


52 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER . 


straight and rigid. A messenger had already been despatched 
by a short cut over the mountain to fetch a doctor. The little sad 
procession climbed up the hill-road then — Phil, the priest, and Mr. 
Featherstonehaugh walking by the side of the cart, Bodkin leading 
the pony. 

"You are sure you felt his heart beat?” Phil said to the 
priest, for again and again the fear returned to her, looking at the 
rigid shapes in the cart. 

“ I am sure of it,” he replied. " They were not long in the 
water, though there was enough sea to drown them a hundred 
times over. Let us get them to a fire, and we shall do everything 
possible till the doctor comes.” 

In a very little while they were before a roaring fire in the best 
bedroom of Castle O’Kelly, laid on mattresses, and with hot bottles 
to their feet. Phil kept her head where most other girls would 
have lost it, and having once, in a moment of energy which had no 
outlet, entered her name for a course of ambulance lectures, she 
knew what to do. Father Tom looked at her using artificial 
respiration upon the boy with approval. He was doing the same 
for Ross Lismore. 

“ Come here,” he said at last, “ and I will take your place. 
This one is coming to. You have had nearly enough of kneeling.” 

Phil was indeed cramped from her long kneeling by the mat- 
tress. She got up and gave place to Father Tom. Then she 
moved slowly across to the place he had left. A great change 
had taken place in the young man’s face — the rigid lines had 
relaxed ; softness and color had returned to it. While she looked 
at it the eyes opened and rested on her an instant. Then an effort 
at recognition struggled in them. The lips opened to speak. 

“ You are to be quiet,” she said, leaning down to him. " You 
have been in the sea, but you are all right now.” 

He lay still a minute with his eyes half closed. Then his hand 
wandered uncertainly toward his head. 

“ The mast must have struck you,” she explained, “ when it 
fell. That is where you feel hurt.” 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


53 


A film as of sleep fell again on his eyes and the lids closed. 

“ I think he will do,” she said, returning to the others. “ This 
is a worse case.” 

“ I don’t know,” Father Tom whispered back. They still talked 
as if they were in a death-chamber. “ I think this one will be all 
right. Poor Boss’s broken head will, I am afraid, be slow of 
mending.” 

“ I can’t think of anything now,” said Phil, “ except that both 
of them live. Let the future take care of itself.” 

“ Or God take care of the future,” said Father Tom, gravely, 
never slackening his exertions. 

Indeed, by the time Dr. Tuomy had reached them, the little 
cabin-boy was in a sound, healthy slumber, which promised to set 
him well on the road to convalescence ere it should be disturbed. 
Boss Lismore’s was a much more serious case. For some time the 
doctor would not commit himself to an opinion about him, but 
talked seriously of having a specialist called ; of possible complica- 
tions, and the necessity, perhaps, of having an operation per- 
formed. However, he grew more hopeful as the days passed, 
though to Phil and the others it seemed a terribly unhopeful out- 
look at times, judging from the patient’s long unconsciousness and 
the pallor which was hardly like life. 

Only a day passed before Mrs. Lismore was by her son’s bed- 
side. Father Tom had offered his old friend the hospitality of his 
house, but this the Misses O’Kelly would not hear of her accepting. 

“ The O’Kellys may have come down in the world,” said Miss 
Fin, “ but they haven’t yet reached the point of refusing shelter 
to the mother of a sick man whom God has placed in their charge.” 

“ ’Twould be a disgrace to us forever,” said Miss Peggy, who 
was still ashamed of herself because she had slept through the 
storm and the rescue, and a little resentful because her quiet pulses 
had not been stirred by witnessing the bravery of those who had 
accomplished the saving of the two lives from the yacht. 

After all, the hospitality of Castle O’Kelly was not so much 
taxed as it might have been, for the cabin-boy, quite well again 


54 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


but immensely consequential, was already on his way home to the 
town of Limerick. 

“ You could as aisy drown a herrin’,” said Bodkin, who was in- 
tolerant of boys and their pranks and their mischievous ways, 
“ an’ you couldn’t crack the skull of him, not if you dropped him 
over the side of Carndhu. If you could, there wouldn’t be many 
min left alive in the world.” 

“ I quite agree with you that boys have a special Providence 
all to themselves, Bodkin,” laughed Phil, who was light-hearted 
that day because for the first time Dr. Tuomy had not shaken his 
head over Ross Lismore. 

“ There’s eleven more of his sort where he comes from,” 
lamented Bodkin. “ But you see ’tisn’t him that unlucky ould 
mast ’ud hit a welt to. I dare say ’tis the long face his mother ’ll 
pull when she sees him walkin’ in to her so bould an’ impident, 
an’ so proud of his drowndin’.” 

“ Indeed, I don’t think she will at all,” said Phil. “ It isn’t 
the way of mothers. I dare say she’d make as much fuss over 
losing one of the eleven as though she had only one.” 

“ Indeed, I dare say she would,” said Bodkin. “ Wimin is ter- 
rible quare. ’Tis their ways, an’ the thought o’ the childher makes 
me glad I’m a single man.” 


CHAPTER YI. 

THE CONVALESCENT. 

Mrs. Lismore settled down into the life at Castle O’Kelly as 
though she had always belonged to it. She was the gentlest of 
the gentle, a meek little woman with innocent, faded eyes, and a 
sweet and sensitive mouth. Even her son’s danger she took 
quietly. It was conceivable of her that she would bear the worst 
trouble while blessing the Hand that dealt it, and that no sorrow 
of hers would ever burden other people. 

She was an ideal sick nurse, and after she had come in, without 


Thinking ovev these things , Phil hod ct sudden sense of some one's eyes being v/pon hev.” P 5S 



\ 

• i \ 

























































HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


57 


taking off her bonnet, and interviewed Dr. Tuomy by her son’s bed- 
side, he talked no more of the necessity for having a trained nurse 
to attend to his patient. 

Yet, after all, it was not on his mother’s face that Ross Lis- 
more first opened his eyes after weeks of wandering in some un- 
known region. 

Mrs. Lismore was out for air and exercise, and it was Phil’s 
turn to be on guard. She was sewing something soft and white. 
Phil, for the life of her, couldn’t turn a bow or adjust a drapery, 
as Colombe did with an inborn genius. But it was one of her un- 
expected and charming femininities — unexpected because Phil had 
somehow the air of a frank and pleasant boy — that she had a 
passion for fine needle-work. That and minute darning — her 
darning of Castle 0 ’Kelly’s old damask table-linen was some- 
thing exquisite — were her delights; whereas Colombe would fain 
have dispensed with the needle altogether, if she might, in the 
making of her delicious loops and bows, and where she must use it 
put in stitches which were Phil’s derision and horror. 

It was a pleasant, w r arm July day, and the room was full of 
the scent of a sweet-briar hedge below the window. That and the 
perfume of sweet peas, of which there was a basinful somewhere 
in the room, mingled delightfully with the sharp, acetic absence 
of smell, which is the expression of absolute cleanliness and un- 
limited fresh air. 

Phil was thinking, as she put in her little stitches, of a letter 
received from Colombe that morning. It was full of a certain 
Piers Vanhomeigh, who had been a very frequent visitor to the 
house on the Mall — a fresh, frank, winning boy who had been 
Colombe’s lover from time immemorial. His name occurred con- 
stantly in the letters from Colombe. How could it be otherwise, 
indeed, seeing that he dogged Colombe’s footsteps so persistently ? 
He had even followed her abroad, turning up at Venice, to the 
great pleasure of Mrs. Maxwell, who was as fond of curly-haired 
Piers as every one else was. 

Phil had knit her brows in a little line of anxious thought over 


58 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER . 


the letter. Over and over Piers had pressed his suit on Colombe, 
taking her “ No ” with a light-heartedness which refused to be 
depressed by it. Colombe was very fond of Piers, but not in that 
way — not in that way at all. 

She had had her fancies. What girl except the dullest dullard 
comes to six-and-twenty without having experienced the thrills and 
tremors, the agonies and exaltations, which are the delightful 
heritage of youth ? But they had been for men older than herself, 
grave and reverend persons, to whom sunny and dancing Colombe 
had the charm of an exquisite child. These little affairs had not 
hurt her. They were rootless, and when they withered Colombe 
had laid them by, like so many sweet-smelling things, in her 
memory. 

Piers waited patiently through them all. Colombe’s com- 
plaint of Piers was, indeed, that he was too patient. But now 
Piers had turned angry, she complained, and because Piers was 
angry Phil carried those lines of thought in her forehead. She 
had always taken it for granted that Colombe would say “ Yes ” 
one day, instead of “ No.” Piers was all that was desirable and 
suitable for Colombe, and had behind that sunny way of his a 
great reserve both of will and heart. He knew Colombe as well 
as Phil did, even better than Phil, perhaps ; for with a full knowl- 
edge of the slight lightness and selfishness which Johnny Feather- 
stonehaugh and Phil had refused to accept in those last sacred 
thoughts together, he yet somehow expected more from Colombe 
than Phil did. Perhaps his belief that Colombe had not yet 
reached her full growth in character was the truth after all. 

But now what had Colombe been doing to him that after his 
limitless patience he should have left her in anger? Phil was 
impatient with Colombe, as one is with the wilful inanities of a 
beloved child. She would hurt herself one day, and then she 
would be sorry forever. 

Thinking over these things, Phil had a sudden sense of some 
one’s eyes being upon her. She looked up sharply. A pair of 
brown eyes in a haggard young face were gazing on her without 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


59 


surprise. Consciousness was quite awake at last. Reason once 
again looked at her in that gaze. 

“ Why, you are awake ! ” she said, brightly. “ This will be good 
news for every one, your mother most of all.” 

“ I remember you,” he said, picking the words out slowly, 
“ the time I was hurt.” 

“ Ah, yes. You will soon be all right again. But you mustn’t 
think or talk yet. Do you think you could take a little broth? 
You’ve got to be fattened now.” 

She slipped a hand under his head, and lifted it a little, care- 
fully. Then she held the strong, reviving broth to his lips. He 
drank it slowly, and smiled as she laid him down again. 

“ Are you a nurse ? ” he asked. 

“ For the present. You’ll find out about me later on. How 
rest. Your mother will be coming in presently. She will be so 
happy to see you like this.” 

He closed his eyes obediently, while Phil resumed her sewing. 
The only sounds in the quiet room were the passage of the thread 
through the linen and the humming of a little mountain-bee 
which had found its way into the masses of sweet-pea. 

Presently Mrs. Lismore came in, soft-footed. Phil turned to 
her with a finger on her lips for quietness. 

“ What do you think ? ” she whispered. “ He is conscious 
again. He has spoken.” 

“ Thank God ! ” said the mother, under her breath. 

“ It ought to have been to you first. But it was my luck. 
He looked quite himself when I lifted my eyes from my sewing to 
find him awake. I gave him his broth and made him go asleep 
again. I think he looks better already — quite bonny.” 

The two women gloated over the haggard face on the pillow. 
“Bonny” was hardly the word. A four weeks’ beard was on the hol- 
low cheeks. The hair had been cut quite away around the wound, 
which, although it had closed, had left an unsightly cicatrix till 
the hair should cover it. A moment they stood so in silence. The 
elder woman’s hand had caught the younger’s in a moment of joy 


60 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


and gratitude. It was an unusual demonstration for Mrs. Lismore 
to make, for she did not find it easy to give expression to the 
thankfulness which was in her heart toward those who had given 
her and hers such hospitality and sympathy in their hour of need. 
Boss Lismore slept on as quietly as a child. 

It was not long before he was able to be moved first to a sofa, 
then to the veranda outside, which, with the green persiennes, gave 
the modern part of Castle O’Kelly the look of an Italian villa. 

He had only to rest and be quiet, Dr. Tuomy said, to be as 
strong as ever in a little time. It had been a beautiful wound 
from the doctor’s point of view, clean-cut as though a sword had 
inflicted it, and it had mended handsomely, without leaving mis- 
chief behind. 

“But there must be no traveling for a man with a cracked 
skull,” he said, “even though he comes of a race accustomed to 
cracked skulls. Perfect rest and perfect quiet for at least six 
weeks to come; and I really think he couldn’t have come to a 
better place for these things.” 

“ But — but — is it fair to our hosts ? And there is no way of 
making it up to them,” groaned Mrs. Lismore. 

“ Oh, bedad, ma’am, if you want to make them your enemies 
for life, you’ll talk about encroaching on their hospitality. I 
wouldn’t mention it to Miss O’Kelly myself, though I’ve seen 
service, and have never felt inclined to run away. Put it out of 
your head, ma’am. Never was hospitality so willingly given.” 

“I know it, doctor; but — but we must rather strain their 
resources.” 

“ You couldn’t make Castle O’Kelly much poorer than it is. 
Still, they’re not pinched, in the vulgar way. How could they be, 
with those streams full of trout and the place running wild with 
hens and chickens, and the garden full of fruit? Then, they 
have Featherstonehaugh to look after them. They’ll want for 
nothing while he lives. There, ma’am, don’t trouble yourself.” 
He laid a kindly hand on the little woman’s shoulder. “ Take 
what’s cheerfully given, as you would give it yourself.” 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


61 


So Mrs. Lismore was restrained from getting the O’Kelly pride 
up in arms, and puzzled her gentle head during her son’s days of 
convalescence by wondering in what way she could render kind- 
ness to her new friends. Indeed, as the days passed, she felt her 
obligation less and less of a burden. A burden in the vulgar sense 
it could not be : the Misses O’Kelly made it so simply evident that 
the presence of their guests was a great event and delight in their 
quiet lives. Only the thought that they were poor yet fretted 
Mrs. Lismore. The old-fashioned and much-mended garments, 
the threadbare carpets, the transparent curtains, the napery held 
together by fine darning — these were so many hurts to the grateful 
friend who had come to love them. 

Ross Lismore was now almost restored to his old good looks. 
It is doubtful if at this time Phil ever thought of him as an agree- 
able young man whose society a young woman would naturally 
feel a pleasant thing. They had all got into such a habit of 
making him the center of their thoughts while he was still very 
ill, that it was almost with amazement that Phil heard him one day 
forbid her to fetch him something — a novel, or his pipe, or some- 
thing he had looked for and had not found at hand. 

“I am going to wait on you,” he said, “ for the rest of 
the time. It is quite time that things resumed their proper 
aspect.” 

“ It will be delightful,” said Phil. “ Just as delightful and 
surprising as when a child one has done things for begins to do 
them in return.” 

“ I believe you would all have liked to keep me on my back ever 
so much longer,” he said. “ It is extraordinary what pleasure 
you women find in service.” 

“ I have not rendered service of that kind to any one — for a 
long time,” said Phil, thinking of her father. 

He watched her wistfully, with a sense that she needed com- 
fort, but not knowing what to say. In a moment or two she 
smiled at him, her own bright, rallying smile. 

“ Don’t you feel tremendously independent ? ” she asked. 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


62 


“ Awfully glad,” he said, with a heartfelt sincerity, “ to be able 
to do things for myself again.” 

Her eyes reproached him. 

“ I mean the things you couldn’t do, Miss Featherstonehaugh. 
You all did the other things a thousand times better than I de- 
served. But — but — I must have looked an awful scarecrow before 
I was able to do things for myself. That first day now, when I 
opened my eyes on you sewing there — didn’t I look awful ? ” 

“You looked lovely, because you were mending.” 

“ Lovely ! ” he groaned. “ That is the professional point of 
view, like Dr. Tuomy’s pleasure in my cut head. I assure you, 
Miss Featherstonehaugh, the first time my mother consented to my 
looking in the glass I all but dropped it.” 

“ And yet women are supposed to monopolize the vanities ! ” 

“ That is ungrateful of you, for it was of you I thought. 
*' Great Heavens ! ’ said I, f what a jail bird I must have looked in 
her eyes ! ’ ” 

Phil laughed out in enjoyment. 

“And your grief was wasted after all. When your mother 
had come in, and you were fallen asleep, we stood by your pillow 
and rejoiced in your good looks.” 

He laughed a little ruefully. 

“ My mother would do that. But you — I should think you 
would avert your eyes from such an object unless — unless you took 
the professional point of view.” 

“Ah, that was it. It was the professional point of view. I 
was so delighted when you opened your eyes.” 

“ I thought I should never get to a razor again after that peep 
in the glass. It was like the vision of waters to a thirsting man in 
the desert. There — what will you think of me ? I am very grate- 
ful to be alive. And to think those poor lads of mine were 
drowned ! ” 

“ You must not think about that. Indeed, we are poor Chris- 
tians, or why do we regard Death as such an evil, and so much to 
be dreaded ? ” 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


“ I suppose that is permitted to us to safeguard our lives. 
Perhaps, when our time comes, we shall not find it dreadful after 
all. But those poor fellows — one had a young wife and child, 
one a sweetheart.” 

“ Ah!” 

Phil’s little monosyllable was eloquent. 

“ I have never felt before that it would be so bitter to leave the 
world. The world has such beautiful things.” 

His eyes were on PhiFs face. 

“ It is a dear world,” she said. 

“ Are you always sewing, Miss Featherstonehaugh ? ” he asked. 

“ When I am here and can talk to some one at the same time. A 
book abstracts me too much. I don’t want to be rapt away from 
Castle O’Kelly.” 

She put down her sewing on her knees, and looked around her 
with an intense pleasure in the beauties she saw. 

“ I shall always think of you as I first saw you, stitching away 
for dear life, with the sun on your hair and your eyelashes. 
There is something so restful about that picture of you.” 

“ That was because you were convalescent. Everything seems 
dreamy and restful then. Wait till you see my sister, Colombe. 
She comes on Monday. She always remakes everybody’s bonnets 
and frocks right off. She will be sitting in the midst of chiffons 
all day. You shall see how this veranda will be littered, and she 
will chatter, chatter, all the time.” 

He frowned for a minute. 

“I’m sure it will be nice, but I half dread anything happening 
that will change the order of things. This is good enough for 
me.” 

“You will recant that heresy in a week’s time,” she said, 
laughing. “Colombe is tremendously popular. You will take an 
interest in her remaking of all Aunt Fin’s and Aunt Peggy’s 
fineries. When we take a walk together in Dublin, and meet an 
acquaintance, I always imagine that Colombe is longing to pull 
her hat to pieces, or to reset a bow.” 


64 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


" She must feel it an ill-dressed world.” 

" She would redress it and make it charming.” 

" Ah, her criticism is only destructive to be kind.” 

" Colombe is all kindness — at least ” — she hesitated — " to peo- 
ple she is fond of. She likes a good many people, and loves a few. 
I remember once, when Colombe had been ill, and had given us all 
something of a fright, how glad we were when she sat up one day, 
and demanded the hats of the household to refurbish them. You 
don’t know how joyfully the message passed from one to the other, 
‘ Colombe is sitting up, trimming hats/ ” 

He laughed a little perfunctorily, as though he were not very 
much interested. 

" I wanted to ask you something,” he said. " That first day, 
when I woke out of my long sleep, you had a pucker between your 
eyebrows which I have never seen there since. What was it 
about ? ” 

" It could not have been about you, for you were going on 
admirably.” 

" I didn’t suppose it. Forgive me : I have only the right to 
ask of a man who owes you boundless gratitude. But it worries 
me that you should have any anxiety.” 

" Which of us can be exempt from it ? ” asked Phil, wisely. 
" It was not for myself ; it was for some one else. For that reason 
I can’t tell you.” 

"It was nothing about yourself: that is enough for me,” he 
said. 

" I have no personal anxieties,” said Phil, frankly. " Things 
go well with me.” 

" Ah,” he said, " you deserve all good things. If I had but the 
power you should never know what anxiety meant, nor any kind of 
sorrow or trouble.” 

"If you had the power I should ask you rather to use it on 
Colombe’s behalf,” Phil answered. "When you know Colombe 
you will feel that she is the one who ought not to suffer.” 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER . 


65 


CHAPTER VII. 

AN AMATEUR PROVIDENCE. 

Phil had walked over alone to lunch with Mr. Featherstone- 
haugh. At the last moment Miss Peggy, who was to have accom- 
panied her, had been sent for to visit a sick girl who was a pet of 
hers and had suddenly grown worse. Phil noticed, half with 
amusement, half with sympathetic understanding, her Uncle 
Ralph's clouded face when he found she had come alone. 

It was about five o'clock in the afternoon when Phil returned, 
to find that every one was out except Miss Peggy, who had got 
home before her. 

“We shall have our tea together on the veranda,'' said Miss 
Peggy, with an air as though she were prepared for a great enjoy- 
ment ; “ and then, when we are settled snugly, you shall tell me all 
about your visit. See what nice cakes Bessie has sent us up. 
Bessie knows how to please young appetites.” 

Bessie was the bright-eyed, brown-faced woman who was Bod- 
kin's coadjutor in the care of the house. She enjoyed infinitesi- 
mal wages, and was always merry-looking, though she had a sharp 
and rallying tongue for that woman-hater Bodkin, whom she had 
despaired of after many years of laying siege to his heart. 

Her range of cooking was simple enough, but it included many 
sweet things which pleased Miss Peggy’s palate more even than 
Phil's. Miss Peggy now lifted the cover off some much-buttered 
and luscious tea-cakes, and surveyed them with rapt enjoyment. 

“ I wish I dare carry some of these to Larry and Micky and 
Katie and Biddy at the lodge,” she said, wistfully, “but Bessie 
would never forgive me. It is not that she is unkind, you know, 
but she is so much attached to us that she couldn’t bear any of 
her cooking to go elsewhere.” 

“ Enjoy them yourself, Aunt Peggy, and leave off thinking of 
what you can give away and to whom you can give it, for once.” 

“ Tell me now how Ralph Featherstonehaugh is looking,” said 
Miss Peggy, as though she had not seen him for a twelvemonth. 


06 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


“ Precisely the same as he looked the night before last when he 
rode off at 10: 30 p.m. He was horribly disappointed at seeing 
only me, and didn’t trouble to conceal it.” 

A bright, soft blush rose on Miss Peggy’s virgin cheeks. 

“ Oh, Phil, my dear, I am sure you are mistaken,” she said, 
eagerly. “ Your Uncle Ralph is so very fond of you girls. And 
I think, if anything, he is the fonder of you. Of course you are 
his own niece.” 

“I’m not offended with Uncle Ralph,” Phil assured her, 
“ and I’m awfully obliged to him. He is giving me one of Boxer’s 
puppies.” 

“ See that, now. He makes a very great favor of giving away 
Boxer’s puppies. Which one did you choose, my dear ? ” 

“ It is hard to say, they are so much alike. It has the dearest 
little silver tuft on its forehead, coming down wedge-shape, and 
the blackest nose, and its chest is so wide that it waddles dread- 
fully. It is the very perfection of an Irish terrier puppy, and 
has the most impudent bark. I tied a knot of my lavender ribbon 
round its neck lest Uncle Ralph should by any chance make a mis- 
take and give it away.” 

“Ralph Featherstonehaugh would never do that, my dear. 
He is so faithful to his promises.” 

“ He might mistake one for the other. They did look alike, 
tumbling over each other. Only my eye, the eye of love, could 
pick out Paddy from the others. Uncle Ralph will keep him a 
week or two longer for me.” 

“ And how did you think the Hall looking ? ” 

She asked with a certain hesitation, and her eyes dropped be- 
fore her niece’s. They were eyes that fluttered like a moth in 
twilight when their owner was nervous — kind, short-sighted eyes, 
which had almost as little introspection as a child’s eyes. 

“ A year older — a year dirtier,” said Phil, briefly. Her heart 
smote her as she saw her aunt wince, but she had a purpose. 

“ You think it is as bad as that, Phil? You are used to Dub- 
lin smartness.” 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


67 


Phil brushed away the appeal in the meek face. 

“ Dublin dirt, you mean,” she answered, shortly. “ But even 
Dublin dirt is beaten by Featherstonehaugh Hall. I wonder how 
Uncle Ralph gets his health there. Of course he wouldn’t, only he 
is out so much.” 

“ I did not think it was so bad as that,” faltered Miss Peggy, 
“ though I was afraid — I was afraid Moll Malone was a slattern.” 

“ You would only see the drawing-room and dining-room, and 
Moll would make an effort there, knowing you were coming. Be- 
sides, your eyes don’t carry you far, though they are dear eyes, 
Aunt Peggy. I just noticed the little heaps of dirt swept up in 
the corners of the rooms, and at the back of the mantel-piece, and 
the beautiful old silver black on the sideboard ; and the plates, even 
at lunch, they were only half-washed; so I thought I’d like to 
explore further. I got the chance when Uncle Ralph was called 
away after lunch to settle a dispute between two of the villagers. 
Moll Malone looked in at me through the drawing-room door. I 
was finding out how many notes were broken on the piano. ‘ Aye, 
that’s right,’ she said ; ‘ amuse yourself wid the pianny. I don’t 
like to see quality pokin’ their noses where they’re not wanted.’ ” 

“ That would be Fin,” put in Miss Peggy. “ She lectured 
Moll about her kitchen the last time we were there.” 

“ I thought she’d some one in her mind, she spoke with such 
bitterness. I waited a little while. Then I went down stairs and 
peeped into the kitchen. No Moll was there. I expect she runs 
down to have a chat with the lodgewoman. But the kitchen ! — 
Aunt Peggy, it was indescribable. Uncle Ralph’s fine old din- 
ner service was half of it on the kitchen floor, half piled on the 
table. The dogs had licked the dishes on the floor clean; they— 
the dogs — were lying before the dirtiest hearth I ever saw, too 
lazily comfortable to drive out the ducks and hens, who were 
quacking and squawking all over the place. I took up a plate 
from the table. Aunt Peggy, I believe the only washing Uncle 
Ralph’s plates ever get is from the dogs’ tongues.” 

“ Mercy on me, child ! ” 


68 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


“ I could see the traces of their tongues on the plates. Then 
the saucepans. You should just see those saucepans ! I didn't 
enjoy the remembrance of my lunch.” 

“ She’ll poison him ! ” cried Miss Peggy, staring wildly at her. 

“ I shouldn’t be at all surprised. Aunt Peggy, were you ever 
in Uncle Ralph’s bedroom ? ” 

“ Never,” answered Miss Peggy, with a blush. 

“ Well, you ought to see that. There was a narrow path to the 
bedside between piles of ragged and coverless books and other rub- 
bish. That bed, I dare swear, hasn’t been made for a twelve- 
month at least. The counterpane was as dirty as the floor. I 
could see that it was lovely old patchwork under the grime. The 
windows were broken, and had been mended in some places with 
brown paper. Other panes gaped almost empty. I don’t know 
how it will be when winter comes on. Uncle Ralph has not a very 
strong chest. I smelt mice all over the place. There are nests 
of them in those heaps of rubbish, I am sure. I saw a big meat- 
bone under the bed. Boxer had brought it there, no doubt, and 
no one had troubled to remove it. Uncle Ralph’s clothes lay 
everywhere. The candlestick on the chair by the bed was nearly 
buried in grease.” 

“ Phil ! ” gasped Miss Peggy, “ don’t say any more. I can’t 
bear it.” 

Phil looked at her as though she had not heard her, yet her 
eyes were soft. 

“ The other rooms I looked into were worse. They were unin- 
habitable. All the beautiful old things gone to rack and ruin, 
buried in rubbish and dirt. Aunt Peggy, I had rather that Uncle 
Ralph had sold the things.” 

“ Only a great emergency would excuse that,” said Miss Peggy, 
lifting her pale face proudly. 

“ Am I cruel, Aunt Peg? Am I a wretch to you?” cried 
Phil, with almost fierce tenderness. 

“ I am grieved about poor Ralph. It is not your fault, child.” 

“But it is yours, Peggy O’Kelly. Oh, you hard-hearted 









■ 


4 


Phil ! ' gasped Miss Peggy , ‘ don't say any more. I can't bear it.' " P. 68. 


































HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


71 


woman! Not content with depriving poor Uncle Ralph of his 
wife all these years, you are going to let him suffer unspeakable 
things at the hands of Moll Malone.” 

Miss Peggy put up her hands with a gesture of entreaty. 

“ Don’t reproach me, Phil. It has been hard on me, too.” 

“Then why did you do it? You might as well have been 
married all those years that Uncle Ralph has been in love with 
you and you with him.” 

Miss Peggy’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. 

“Do you think it cost me nothing?” she said, with a passion 
that surprised her niece. “Do you think I rejected lightly the 
things that make the happiness of other women — that would have 
made my happiness? Do you think I don’t look back out of my 
old age and see how beautiful it would have been — the home, the 
husband, the children — everything I rejected?” 

The little, faded, modest spinster Phil had known was lost in 
this passionate and sorrowful outburst, before which Phil felt sud- 
denly her own insolence and the rashness of her intrusion. 

“ Forgive me, Aunt Peggy,” she said, humbly. “Of course 
I don’t know everything. I was dull and presumptuous or I 
would have realized that there must be some reason I could not 
know. I am very sorry, Aunt Peggy.” 

Miss Peggy’s face changed back to its old softness. 

“ Never mind, Phil, dear,” she said. “ I know you meant 
kindly. I am surprised at my own violence, so I am. Poor Ralph, 
I didn’t realize how I was punishing him when I took the only 
course that seemed possible to me. I thought he acquiesced. He 
gave up asking me a long time ago. Now we are both old.” 

“ He is in love with you still, Aunt Peggy.” 

“ Poor Ralph, poor Ralph ! I could have made him very happy 
once. But now we are too old. All that is over for us.” 

“ He doesn’t think you are too old. You are never too old if you 
are in love with each other.” 

Miss Peggy looked at her in wonder. 

“ Do you know that Ralph Featherstonehaugh was in love with 


72 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER . 


me before you were born, Phil? And I was not regarded as 
young then. People thought differently in those days. Sixteen 
was the proper age for a girl to marry at, and at twenty-eight all 
our chances were over. I was regarded as quite an old maid at — ” 

She paused suddenly and blushed. Even now Miss Peggy 
could not have borne to reveal her real age. Phil understood and 
sympathized. She filled up the gap in the conversation hurriedly. 

“ A lady I know was married the other day at thirty-five to a 
man some years younger than herself. He is romantically in love 
with her, and their marriage was something to make one believe in 
all the poems the poets have ever written. ‘ I have felt the limita- 
tions of mortal happiness/ she said to me, ‘ in every other good 
thing that has come to me. But there was no limitation on my 
wedding-day. It was perfect happiness, the thing I have always 
believed was not vouchsafed to us on earth/ ” 

“Ah,” sighed Miss Peggy, “the women of to-day are more 
fortunate. When everything within and without the women of 
my day told them they were young and lovely, a foolish and cruel 
custom set them among the old.” 

Phil was a little surprised. She had not given her Aunt Peggy 
credit for so much thought. 

“ Then your mother pushed me aside — not knowingly, of 
course. But her youth made me old — to every one but Kalph 
Featherstonehaugh. I believe what you say, Phil. I shall never 
be old to him.” 

“ Then why not marry him ? ” asked direct Phil. 

Miss Peggy averted her gaze. 

“ I have never talked about this before to any one, Phil, and I 
never thought I should. But since you have asked me I will tell 
you, though it involves the telling of another person’s story. You 
know there is a considerable difference in years between your Aunt 
Fin and myself.” 

“I have always supposed as much. Any one can see that, 
Aunt Peggy.” 

“Well, Fin made a great sacrifice for me when she was a 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


73 


young girl and I a small child. In fact, she refused an offer of 
marriage in order that she might fulfil her promise to our mother, 
and devote herself to my upbringing. She never talked about it, 
but I think it made a great difference to Fin. When the time 
came for me to give up something in return, I hope I did it 
cheerfully.” 

“ Sacrifices are all very well in their way,” said Phil, “ and 
I dare say Aunt Fin’s was all right. But I like to see some end 
in them. Why couldn’t you have married Uncle Ralph? Why 
don’t you marry him now, and give Aunt Fin a home as well ? ” 

Miss Peggy shook her head. 

“ Fin would never consent to it — never, never ! Ralph Fea- 
therstonehaugh is nearly as poor as we are. Nor would she accept 
the hundred pounds a year which I inherited from my godmother, 
and which has carried us over many tight places, Phil. Indeed, 
she couldn’t live at Castle O’Kelly without the little income which 
has belonged to both for so long.” 

“ I think Aunt Fin would do more than you imagine, if she 
knew that your happiness was involved. Aunt Peggy.” 

Miss Peggy looked at her in consternation. 

“ But she must never know, Phil ; you understand that. Her 
whole desire all her life has been to make me happy. It would 
kill her if she thought she had stood in my way. And you see, 
Phil, it is all over long ago. We are old people now, Ralph 
Featherstonehaugh and I. Why, it is years since he gave up ask- 
ing me. And we are both quite happy, old, and peaceful, Phil. 
Peace is as much as we can look for at our age.” 

Miss Peggy smiled in a poor pretense of accepting old age, but 
Phil knew better. 

“ You have plenty of youth unspent still,” she muttered, “ and 
I am quite, quite sure that Featherstonehaugh Hall ought to have 
its mistress.” 


74 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

COLOMBE. 

Colombe had come, darting into the quiet life at Castle 
O’Kelly like a bird of brilliant plumage, and making everything 
and every one perceptibly the brighter for her presence. 

Even the invalid, who had disliked the idea of her coming, was 
content to watch her with lazy pleasure, and the quiet confidential 
hours with her more serious sister seemed to be forgotten and 
unregretted. Phil, Colombe, and the young man made the veran- 
da their own. It was out-of-doors weather, and there could not 
have been a merrier party than the three who sat so much amid 
a pleasant litter of things feminine and masculine. The sound of 
their laughter exhilarated the quiet house. Their elders left them 
much to themselves, going about their occupations with a cheerful 
feeling, as though the years and the burdens had suddenly been 
rolled away from shoulders that had learned to stoop. 

Colombe’s was certainly an exhilarating personality ; and Phil 
had never felt it hard that, generally speaking, her sister had been 
more desired than she. The difference between them was that Phil 
had leal friends, and people who were quite indifferent; or even 
disliked her. It was a penalty of her frank nature, which pre- 
tended nothing, that she did not possess the universal good will; 
whereas Colombe could hardly fail to be charming if she tried, 
and it was easier to be charming even toward the people to whom at 
heart she was profoundly indifferent. 

Phil had cross-examined her over the quarrel with Piers Van- 
homeigh, which was yet unhealed, to Phil’s great disappointment. 

Colombe had made a frank confession, with so much the air of 
a beloved child half ashamed of and half confirmed in its naughti- 
tiness, that Phil smiled with a humorous anticipation of Colombe’s 
suddenly putting a finger in her mouth and refusing to answer 
any more. 

It appeared that Colombe, moved by some unaccountable per- 
versity, had bid Piers, when he urged his suit, to carry it to 
Rachel Pike, a gentle and modest Quaker girl, who was their 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


75 


neighbor on the Mall, and their playmate, after her demure 
fashion, from childhood. 

When Colombe owned to this, darting a shamefaced glance at 
Phil from her brilliant eyes, Phil suddenly became rigid. 

“I couldn’t have believed it of you, Colombe,” she said, 
sternly. “ You might have spared poor Kachel, seeing that you 
have always been preferred before her and always will be.” 

“I don’t know about ‘always will be,’ ” said Colombe, with a 
suggestion of pique. “ He shows no sign of coming back.” 

“ He does well to be angry.” 

“ But, Phil, dear, it was only my stupidity. I never thought 
about Rachel’s little fancy for him, only she was the first girl 
who occurred to me. I felt horribly ashamed when I had said it.” 

Phil’s face cleared magically. 

“ Forgive me, Colombe,” she said. “ I might have known you 
wouldn’t be mean to poor Rachel or any other girl. Why didn’t 
you let Piers know that it was said without intention ? ” 

“ He was horrid to me,” said Colombe, flushing. “ You 
couldn’t have believed it was Piers. His face got very red, and 
he just walked at me and seized my hands. ‘ You must apologize 
to me and to Miss Pike for what you have said,’ he said to me. 
‘ You have taken an unwarrantable liberty with a lady’s name.’ 
You can imagine how surprised and offended I was. Could you 
have believed it of Piers — Piers, who was always laughing and 
amiable ? ” 

“ And what did you say ? ” asked Phil, breathlessly. 

“ I said I wouldn’t apologize.” 

Colombe’s face reproduced the scene, an adorably mutinous 
face, like that of a rosy child, whose beauty wins its pardon. 

“ Then he laughed — a furious laugh, much angrier, Phil, than 
if he had scolded ; and what do you suppose he said ? ” 

The angry red burned in Colombe’s cheek. 

“ That I had been vulgar. Phil, just think of it ! I vulgar ! 
After that you may suppose I was little likely to make any ex- 
planations. He stood there for a few seconds holding my hands. 


76 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER . 


and — and hurting them. Then he laughed again, and flung them 
away from him and walked out of the room. I have never seen 
him since.” 

“ 0 Colombe, and you let him suppose you said that about 
poor Rachel deliberately ? ” 

“ He thought more of Rachel than of me,” pleaded Colombe, 
half sulkily. 

“ No, he didn’t. He thought of you and was angry with you 
because he loved you. I think a thousand times more of Piers. 
I should like a man I cared for to feel that way about a girl who 
had honored him by — by liking him very much. If I marry I shall 
never be jealous of my husband’s old sweethearts. I shall like to 
think that though all his heart is mine he keeps them somewhere 
in his memory, as we keep the dead.” 

Colombe stared. 

“ There should never be any one but me,” she said, vehemently. 
“ Never, never ! And as for Piers, I shall never forgive him. If 
it were any one else, any one older, graver — ” Was there a 
little consciousness in Colombe’s face ? “ But Piers, a boy like 

Piers, three years younger than I am. It was intolerable.” 

“ Where do you suppose he has gone to ? ” 

“ I don’t know anything about him.” 

“ Nor care ? ” 

“ Nor care.” 

“ I should not be at all surprised if he were to fall in love with 
Rachel after all. I think that with the very nicest kind of men — 
and Piers is surely one — it must make an attraction when he 
knows a girl — a girl like Rachel — is a little fond of him.” 

Colombe darted a look at her, as near resentment as she ever 
got with her beloved Phil. 

“ He should not have thought such a thing of me,” she said. 
“ He should have known it was only a blunder.” 

“ I thought it, too,” Phil reminded her, feeling grievously in 
the wrong. 

“Then you should not have thought it,” said Colombe, put- 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


77 


ting forgiving arms round her neck. “ But I forgive you. I shall 
never forgive Piers. And I am tired of Piers. I should hate to 
marry a man younger than myself.” 

Phil never doubted that Piers would come back, but a fort- 
night or three weeks passed and there was no word of him. It 
was inconceivable of him that he should resist Colombe so long. 
Perhaps he had indeed taken Colombe at her word, and carried his 
long-played-with suit to Rachel Pike. 

If he had, how would Colombe take it? Colombe answered 
the question for herself by being the gayest of the gay. As Ross 
Lismore mended, they began to have little expeditions, small 
picnics, and river parties, which Colombe arranged and carried 
to a successful conclusion. Her delight in these small festivities 
was infectious. She vowed that if she could she would never eat 
a meal within doors. The cold salmon-trout and chicken, the 
leaves of lettuce and home-made bread, were, she declared, food 
for the gods eaten in a wood or on the river bank, with the voice 
of falling waters in one’s ears. And the tea ! Others might find 
the water tasting of wood smoke, or they might have brought salt 
instead of sugar. Such misadventures will occur in picnicking; 
but the tea was pure nectar, all the same, and Colombe was able to 
persuade the elders to enjoy it nearly as much as she did. 

These functions were, of course, of the tiniest, for Castle 
O’Kelly had no neighbors within many miles. Sometimes there 
was only the little house party. Sometimes they were joined by 
Father Tom, or by the hard-worked doctor, or by Mr. Thornhill, 
who complained that he was being driven to authorship for want 
of something to do, and would jocularly implore the priest to lend 
him half his flock, so that he might see what it was like to have 
really a care of souls. His baker’s dozen of parishioners were 
well satisfied with their spiritual condition, and inclined to con- 
demn their easy-going pastor for a toleration which seemed to 
them to savor of Erastianism. 

Both the doctor and the parson declared themselves victims to 
Colombe’s charms, and were full of amiable jokes on the subject, 


78 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


which pleased themselves so inordinately that they could not fail 
to please other people. 

Colombe entered into the spirit of the thing with her usual 
animation, and received the two old bachelors’ bouquets as she 
did their pretty speeches — with a winning gaiety and impartiality 
which made them more her slaves than ever. 

Meanwhile the end of the visit drew near. Dr. Tuomy had at 
last given permission for his patient to return to his own home, 
and the Lismores were to travel with the two girls as far as 
Athlone. 

This was the first arrangement, but presently, in the eclipse 
of gaiety which fell upon all when the approaching parting was 
touched upon, there came a ray of light. 

“ Come back with us to Knockarea,” said Mrs. Lismore sud- 
denly one day, while she talked with the two girls. 

Phil’s face lit up. The invitation was surely for her. One 
of them must go back, to be with the mother at the seaside, but 
she had given up the Italian journey to Colombe; Colombe would 
surely say that this was Phil’s visit. 

She looked toward Colombe with expectancy. To her amaze- 
ment, she saw her own pleasure mirrored in Colombe’s face. Co- 
lombe was going to speak, to accept for her — Phil — surely. No; 
Colombe was expressing her own delight in accepting the invi- 
tation. 

Phil got up and went out of the room, with Colombe’s de- 
lighted acceptance in her ears. She could not argue the point with 
Mrs. Lismore present. She must wait till she and Colombe were 
alone. But she was not going to relinquish this visit. For per- 
haps the first time since their childhood, she resented Colombe’s 
eagerness to grasp at every pleasant thing that presented itself. 
Colombe had always stood in the sunshine. Phil remembered her 
father’s speech. Perpetual sun was enervating. Colombe must 
keep her mother company at Dalkey. 

She was quite, quite sure she was wanted at least as much as 
Colombe. Her own heart told her jealously that she was wanted 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


79 


more. Colombe’s coming had indeed hindered, to some extent, 
the development of the friendship which had been so far advanced 
when she had come. The intimacy of three is not — never can be — 
the intimacy of two. Easy camaraderie may develop, bnt there is 
no chance for confidences. Yet Phil had never wished Colombe 
away, any more than Colombe had seemed to wish her. 

But surely, surely there had been something in Ross Lismore’s 
eyes and voice for her which had not been there for Colombe. 
Surely in the gay and happy intercourse with Colombe there had 
been something lacking that belonged to the quieter friendship. 
Colombe had made her own of Ross Lismore, claiming him, as he 
grew stronger, for a thousand little offices ; but that was Colombe’s 
way, and if he had not seemed to object, why, where was the young 
man — or old, for the matter of that — who objected to being charm- 
ing Colombe’s squire? Phil was the last person in the world 
lightly to imagine herself neglected. 

If she had any doubts Ross Lismore himself settled them for 
her. He made an opportunity to speak with Phil, even while Co- 
lombe’s merry voice was calling him. 

“My mother tells me that we may hope to carry you off to 
Knockarea,” he said. 

“ It would be delightful,” Phil answered. 

“ And you will come ? ” 

“ I shall come,” said Phil, feeling that the matter was settled 
as between her and Colombe. 

“ I want you to know my home,” he said, and something in his 
voice made PhiPs steady pulses beat. “It is a dear old house, and 
the country is lovely — wooded country, such as we do not often get 
in Ireland, and the magnificent river. You will understand how 
I love it.” 

“Yes,” said Phil. 

“It has been ours for many generations. It will be ours, I 
hope, for many more. We have struck roots in it.” 

“ I know. I feel the same about Castle O’Kelly. It has some- 
thing stable about it, something one can set one’s heart on, unlike 


80 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


our city houses, which it is not worth while to love, because some 
one called them ‘ mine ’ yesterday, and some one else will to-mor- 
row.” 

“1 can always trust you to understand,” he said, and there 
was a pause between them. Then came Colombe’s bright, imperi- 
ous call, and he turned to laugh at Phil. 

“I shall be getting into horrible trouble if I don’t go,” he 
said. “ I promise myself compensation for this at Knockarea.” 

After she had promised Phil was quite sure that she must be 
the one to go. Even if Colombe w r as very much bent upon it she 
would resist, for once, Colombe’s coaxing and wheedling ways. 
Colombe might want it very much, but Phil’s will was sure to win 
unless she chose to resign it. At the worst Colombe would pretend 
to sulk, and then go back brightly to Dublin to make new con- 
quests, and doubtless to reclaim Piers Yanhomeigh. Colombe 
would be just as happy at Dalkey as at Knockarea; and Phil must 
only make up to her some other way for any disappointment Co- 
lombe felt about it. 


CHAPTER IX. 

COLOMBE HAS HER WAY. 

Phil had no opportunity of speaking to Colombe all that day, 
nor till another day had passed by. She listened with wonder to 
Colombe’s delighted anticipations of her visit, which pleased Mrs. 
Lismore hugely, and brought the indulgent look in Ross Lismore’s 
eyes, which was their usual expression when they rested on 
Colombe. 

Phil wondered if her sister could have forgotten that both 
could not possibly go to Knockarea. If she had not, this arroga- 
tion of pleasure to herself, without a moment’s consideration 
as to how Phil felt about it, hurt and somewhat angered the 
younger girl. 

It was impossible to get hold of Colombe for a quiet moment 
during the day, and she shared a room with her Aunt Peggy, so 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


81 


that Phil had to make her opportunity; and in this Colombe cer- 
tainly did not help her. 

“ I want to talk to you, Colombe/’ she said, as they took their 
bedroom candlesticks the day after the invitation had been given. 

“Very well, then,” said Colombe — was there a flash of appre- 
hension in her eyes ? — “ I shall come and brush my hair in your 
room.” 

Colombe, in a snowy thing all laces and softness, which it were 
a sin to call a dressing-gown, and with her dazzling hair about her 
shoulders, was lovelier than even by daylight. 

She seated herself in front of the glass, to the exclusion of the 
rightful occupant of the room. Phil was too used to Colombe’s 
doing this to notice it. In the room the two girls shared at the 
Mall Phil had grown so used to Colombe’s monopoly of the glass 
that long ago she had given up the glass altogether, and would 
twist her brown coils contentedly without thinking of it, even if it 
did happen to be free. 

Sitting now on the side of her bed she caught sight of Co- 
lombe’s face in the glass, and imagined for a moment that she saw 
an expression there as though Colombe had come prepared for a 
bit of a tussle. But if it had been there it passed immediately, 
and Phil dismissed from her mind the idea that she had seen it. 
Whatever Colombe’s faults were, she was usually frank enough 
about her thoughts and doings. 

“Well?” said Colombe, as Phil did not speak immediately. 
She had drawn her hair about her face, and was brushing it 
steadily. Intentionally or not, it made a veil against any betrayal 
of expression, which otherwise Phil, sitting where she did, might 
have noticed. 

“ You seem to have forgotten, Colombe,” said Phil, “ that one 
of us must go back to be with mamma at Dalkey. We can not both 
go to Knockarea.” 

“ I had not forgotten,” Colombe replied, in a low voice. 

“ I gave up Italy to you,” Phil reminded her, “ and most will- 
ingly. I want to go to Knockarea.” 


82 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


“ I want to go, too,” said Colombe. 

Phil stared at the golden fleece, which was all she could see of 
Colombe. 

“ Besides, they want me to go,” Colombe went on. 

A little red spot came in Phil's cheeks. 

“ I am sure they want us both, Colombe,” she said, and her 
voice trembled a little. “ They don't know that it must be only 
one of us.” 

Suddenly Colombe flung back her masses of hair and rushed 
upon Phil in an impetuous onslaught. 

“ Dearest Phil,” she said, “ let me go ! It is nothing to you, 
and it is everything to me. You don't know how much depends 
on it, or you would not sit there hardening your face against me 
and your heart.” 

Phil had suddenly turned cold with a horrible apprehension. 

“ What do you mean, Colombe?” she asked. 

“ I sha'n’t be able to tell you if you speak to me like that. You 
have always been so good to me, Phil.” 

Almost from force of habit, Phil put out her hand and stroked 
the golden veil of hair. 

“ That is right,” said Colombe, with a sigh of relief. “ Now 
you are my dear old Phil again. Phil, don't you see I must go ? 
For the first time in my life, I really care for some one. All my 
future happiness depends on my going.” 

“ You mean Mr. Lismore?” asked Phil, in a voice that 
sounded unnatural to her own ear. 

Colombe blushed rosy through her hair, and her eyes drooped ; 
but for once Phil was insensible to the appeal of her beauty. 

“You have cared for people, or thought you cared for them 
before,” she said. 

“ Youthful follies,” said Colombe, contemptuously. “I am 
twenty-six now, and I know my own mind.” 

“ But — about Mr. Lismore ? Does he care ? ” asked Phil, in 
a low voice. 

Colombe looked at her in a naive surprise. 



If I should see Piers Vanhomeigh ! ’ echoed Phil, ‘ I am to console him 
I suppose ; to look after him in your absence. Is that it?'" P. 88. 














































































































































HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


85 


“ Did you think he wouldn’t ? ” she asked. 

“ Do you think he cares ? ” 

“ I am sure he does.” 

“ I should have thought he didn’t,” said Phil, half -unbeliev- 
ingly. 

“ Ah,” said Colombe. “ Of course you would not know.” 

It was true enough. Phil knew very little. There had been 
nothing between her and Ross Lismore — no love-passages ; nothing 
but an affectionateness easily attributable to the kindness he owed 
her and hers. Perhaps Colombe was right after all, Phil thought 
drearily. Suddenly her resistance broke down. Let Colombe 
have this chance. If he cared for her, let him tell her. 

“ Listen, dearest Phil,” cried Colombe again. “Be good to 
mein this, as you have been good to me all our lives together. You 
must help me — you must, Phil. I know I’m vain and selfish, not 
to be thought of in the same breath with you. But he loves me, 
I am sure he does. And he is good and wiser than I. I shall be 
a good woman if I marry Ross Lismore.” 

Phil said nothing. She was trying to think it out, but she 
felt dull and stupid. Colombe, impatient, gave her a little shake. 

“What can it matter to you, Phil? It is only a visit, after 
all. I shall give up everything else to you if this goes all right. 
Why are you silent, Phil? Bid me go, and good luck go with 
me.” 

Phil suddenly set herself free from Colombe. Colombe must 
not know that it mattered to her. That would be the one unen- 
durable thing. Her thought was to get rid of Colombe, and then 
to get rid of it all, and escape where she could be alone. The 
thought of explanations terrified her. She was no more the level- 
headed Phil. She could not imagine keeping her secret safe if 
she had to stay during the days that must elapse before the party 
broke up. And proud, sensitive Phil sickened at the thought that 
she had been allowing herself to drift into an attachment for a 
man who doubtless preferred her fascinating sister. There was 
something almost vulgar, it seemed to Phil’s hurt soul, in two 


86 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


sisters caring for the one man. At least, there would be no con- 
test, she said to herself. 

When Phil was alone, she prayed as one prays in such a 
trouble — voicelessly, wordlessly, almost without coherent thought, 
but on her knees, with her face hidden in her hands. 

She suffered the more because it was her first suffering of the 
kind. She had wondered at the facile love affairs and the facile 
sufferings of other girls. It had always seemed to her that she 
could never give her heart except with difficulty, and where it was 
well sought. And here she was as foolish as any of them, and 
bitterly hurt. 

She would not look forward to a more horrible time to come, 
when Lismore would be her sister’s lover, husband. Ah! before 
that came she would have found strength to drag her feeling for 
him up by the roots. It was inconceivable that she could go on 
caring, suffering like this. No, she would be saved from that. 
The Ear to which she sent that voiceless, wordless prayer would 
be inclined to her. She would have help from the Source of all 
help. 

Morning brought her the first word in answer. It was a letter 
from her mother asking that one of her girls should return sooner 
than the intended completion of the visit, as her health had been 
failing a little and her doctor had advised her hastening her visit 
to the seaside. The summer was a hot one, and the house on the 
Mall felt the neighborhood of the water in a dampness which 
made the heat more unbearable. 

There was an expedition planned for that day. Phil had been 
wondering how she could go through with it, and the letter came 
to her like a deliverance. 

She left the breakfast-table very early, and as she stood up, 
asked Colombe to follow her upstairs when she was ready. 

When Colombe came racing into the room, Phil was already 
pulling her belongings about. She handed Colombe the letter. 

“ I’m not going with you to-day,” she said. “ I am going back 
to Dublin. It isn’t fair to leave her alone a day longer.” 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


87 


Colombe read the letter. 

“ There doesn’t seem any great need for haste/’ she .said, 
dubiously. 

“ I think there is/’ said Phil. 

“ You won’t be able to say good-by to Mr. Lismore. As there 
were already more of us than Tim Healy liked to carry, he walked 
over to take a seat in Dr. Tuomy’s dog-cart.” 

“ I am sorry,” said Phil, untruthfully, “ but it can’t be helped. 
You must say good-by to him for me.” 

“ Must you go to-day ? ” 

“ I ought to go.” 

“ How will you get to the cross-roads, Phil ? I suppose you’ll 
get the mail-car there.” 

“It passes at eleven. I thought that Tim could take Mrs. 
Lismore and Aunt Peggy, and the luggage. It’s not very much. 
You and I could walk that far.” 

“ So we could.” 

“ Colombe, I’ve been thinking that it is cruel of us all to leave 
Castle O’Kelly at once. They will miss us dreadfully. Couldn’t 
Aunt Peggy go with you to Knockarea instead of me ? ” 

“And Aunt Fin?” 

“ Could come and stay with us at Dalkey. They would both 
love their outings.” 

“ So they would. We must talk to them about it. Dear Phil, 
we shall miss you horribly.” 

“ It won’t be for long,” said Phil, in a voice she felt to be 
cold. 

Colombe looked at her for an instant. Then she came toward 

her. 

“I shall never forget your goodness to me, Phil, about this 
visit. You are a dear, good sister, and I shall feel I owe some of 
my happiness to you. You shall have all the nice things in 
future.” 

But Phil pushed her away gently. She couldn’t endure 
Colombe’s thanks. 


88 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


“ You are making a fuss about nothing/’ she said. “ You know 
you always get the best of things. What is a mere country visit 
after all ? ” 

“ That is just what I felt,” said Colombe. “ Of course, it 
couldn’t matter to you. That is one thing that makes it pleasanter 
for me, for I shouldn’t really be happy if I felt I’d pushed you 
out of something you wanted. And you know you’re very fond of 
Dalkey, aren’t you, Phil ? It will be lovely there. I should envy 
you, only—” 

Phil, with a short laugh, suddenly stood up, and pushed 
Colombe toward the door. 

“ Go, Chatterbox,” she said, “ or we shall never catch the mail- 
car. Go and tell them I am leaving, and that Aunt Fin is to 
follow me next week. Be sure and enjoy yourself. Dalkey is 
always lovely, and you are quite right. I am very fond of it.” 

With a half -wistful glance backward, Colombe obeyed her 
sister, and went half-way across the room. Then she stopped. 

“ If you should see Piers Yanhomeigh — ” she began. 

“ If I should see Piers Yanhomeigh ! ” echoed Phil, with a 
short laugh — she was folding a skirt neatly, and did not look 
toward Colombe — “ I am to console him, I suppose ; to look after 
him in your absence. Is that it ? ” 

Colombe’s glance at her was a wounded one. She hardly knew 
Phil in this unsympathetic mood. 

“ Well, never mind,” she said, with a little sigh, going out, and 
closing the door after her. 

CHAPTER X. 

AUNT FIN EFFACES HERSELF. 

Phil was at Dalkey. Aunt Fin had come, and was her com- 
panion in those rambles over Killiney Hill, and through the vale 
of Shanganagh, which, before her coming, had been companion- 
less. For Mrs. Featherstonehaugh, despite her doctor’s orders, 
transacted nearly as much of her charitable business by post as 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


she had done in town on her untiring feet, and was incessantly at 
her desk. 

“ When I give up my work, Phil,” she said, smiling a little 
wanly, “ you may believe that I have not much longer to stay in 
the world. It is all I have to live for now.” 

Phil did not remind her that she had still two daughters. She 
would leave her mother in the cool room in Sorrento Terrace over- 
looking that divine stretch of sea and mountain, and wander away 
with her Irish terrier puppy at her heels. Pat was a dog of in- 
domitable spirit, and from the first refused to be carried, be the 
way ever so weary and long. Perhaps, at the moment, there was 
no human companionship quite so desirable ; but before her Aunt 
Fin had come Phil had thought out so much of the matter as re- 
quired hard thinking, and had attained to a melancholy resigna- 
tion. 

She had reached the conclusion that Ross Lismore had never 
been on the road to become her lover. If he had, would he have 
accepted the breaking of her word in the matter of the visit with- 
out a reproach, or an effort after explanation ? 

Phil was inclined to think not. She had kept her eyes open 
through her twenty-odd years of life, and, despite her inexperience, 
she concluded that the misunderstandings of lovers, which make up 
the rusty machinery of many novels, have no existence in real life. 
A living man would scatter those cobwebs rudely to reach his 
beloved. A living woman would not be worth her salt, said Phil, 
if she were not ready to do the like. Would she let little piques 
and little resentments divide her from a friend, much less a lover ? 
No; Ross Lismore made no sign; to judge by Colombe’s letters, 
was, indeed, the most devoted of squires. Alas ! she — Phil — who 
had been proud of her single heart, and her freedom from the 
little foolish love-worries of her peers — she had been the one to 
surrender her heart with an immodest readiness where it had not 
been required of her. 

She walked down a good deal of the bitterness and mortification 
of it before Aunt Fin joined her, and was thankful for the quiet- 


90 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


ness and freedom it was possible to attain so near her own doors. 
Dalkey was full of gay and happy people that hot August. It 
was easy to leave behind her the girls in summer frocks and the 
blazer-clad youths, and escape to the quietness of inland glens and 
heather-clad hills. 

Aunt Fin found Phil looking less brown and wholesome than 
she had been at Castle O’Kelly, mentioned casually that Mr. Lis- 
more had been disappointed at Phil’s abrupt flight, gave her the 
latest news from her Aunt Peggy’s letters, more explicit in one 
way than Colombe’s hastily scratched notes to Phil. 

Miss Peggy, who was nothing if not tenderly romantic, 
scented a love-affair between her darling Colombe and the young 
man they had all come to be fond of. She was in a kind flutter 
about it, and apparently playing propriety in the most considerate 
manner possible. 

“ It will be your turn next, Phil,” said Aunt Fin, noticing, 
perhaps, a silence that seemed unsympathetic. “Just think of 
it. Colombe is going on for twenty-seven, though no one ever 
would believe it. It is really time for the dear child to marry. 
When Peggy was her age, I had begun to give up trembling every 
time I saw a man approach her, lest he should carry her off. 
Things are different nowadays.” 

Phil and Aunt Fin were sitting on a seat kindly placed where 
Killiney Hill shadows the exquisite Yico Eoad. It was a moonlit 
night, and the crescent bay was silver as Dian’s bow. There were 
little twinkling lights about the Sorrento headland, in the gardens, 
and in the windows of houses. A band was playing in the Sor- 
rento gardens. The distance and the sea made the music dream- 
ily sweet. Phil gazed that way. Every nook in the rocks, she 
knew, had its pair of lovers, real lovers, or young people playing 
at love. The thought of the young world pairing made Phil 
vaguely, dreamily unhappy. Somewhere there was another pair 
of lovers. Ah ! that was something not to be thought upon. 

She heard herself answering her aunt as though it were another 
person speaking. 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


91 


“ She ought to have married Piers Vanhomeigh,” she said. 

“ Your Aunt Peggy, my dear. It was of your Aunt Peggy I 
was speaking,” Miss Fin said, in bewilderment. She didn’t 
know very much more of young Vanhomeigh than that he existed. 

“ No, Colombe. Aunt Peggy should have married Uncle 
Ralph. She ought to marry him now.” 

Miss Fin’s face turned red in the darkness. 

“ They have been very happy without marriage,” she said. 

“ No, they haven’t. Aunt Fin,” said Phil, doggedly. 

“ Peggy will be, will be — Why, bless my soul, Peggy must 
be well over fifty. No woman of fifty thinks of marriage, and no 
man for her.” 

“ Ah, there you are wrong. Uncle Ralph would be out of his 
mind with joy if Aunt Peggy would take him, even now. He is 
dreadfully neglected for want of a wife, poor thing ! ” 

Phil was looking away toward Sorrento, and thinking of the 
lovers there. Miss Fin’s sudden alarmed color had ebbed away, 
leaving her paler than usual. Her eyes were startled. But even 
if Phil had been looking, of course the night hid her changes of 
expression. 

“ I used to wonder,” she said, at last, “ why they didn’t marry. 
Why didn’t they, Phil?” 

“ Because Aunt Peggy loved you too well to leave you. Aunt 
Fin.” 

“ Stuff and nonsense ! ” said Miss Fin, with sudden fury. 
“ She’d never let me stand in her way like that. I, who would 
always have done anything to make her happy.” 

“ I think she was wrong, Aunt Fin, but she did.” 

“And it is too late now,” said Miss Fin, slowly. There was 
something piteous in her look at the smooth outline of Phil’s 
young cheek. 

“It is not too late,” said Phil. “They are as fond of each 
other as ever.” 

“ Peggy could not make such a change — at her age. If what 
you are telling me is true, Phil — and young people are sometimes 


92 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


too sure — Peggy has learned to be happy without marriage. The 
past can never be undone.” 

Miss Fin was pleading as for her life, but Phil was insensible 
to the prayer in her voice. 

“ They ought to marry now,” she said. “ I told Peggy she 
was wrong. She said you were so proud. I said your love was 
stronger than your pride.” 

“ You talked with Peggy about it ? ” 

Miss Fin’s voice no longer prayed that she might be spared. 
It was full of fear now. 

“ We talked about it when I was at Castle O’Kelly. Aunt 
Peggy isn’t happy in her sense of a divided duty. There is you on 
one side. She loves you so much, and she owes you, she says, a 
debt she can only repay this way.” 

“ Fudge ! ” interrupted Aunt Fin. “ Peggy owe a debt to me, 
indeed ! What would my life have been without her ? I thought 
we should have been together for the rest of the time.” 

The old, indomitable voice broke piteously. 

“ On the other hand,” went on Phil, “ there is Uncle Ralph, 
wretchedly neglected in his old age, at the mercy of that horrible 
slattern, Moll Malone ; his old house like a pig-sty ; himself living 
in the midst of dirt and disorder indescribable. I think Aunt 
Peggy owes him this tardy reparation.” 

“ She would give it to him, Phil, only for me ? You think so, 
Phil ? You are sure of it ? ” 

“ She is under a delusion, Aunt Fin. She thinks you would not 
take a seat in the chimney-corner of Featherstonehaugh Hall. 
She will never go without you.” 

“ Perhaps I am too old to take a seat in other people’s chim- 
ney-corner, Phil.” The voice was heart-broken, and it pierced 
Phil’s young absorption in her own sorrow. 

“Dear Aunt Fin,” she said, “have I hurt you? Perhaps I 
ought not to have spoken, though I felt I ought. Come to us, if 
you will not accept Aunt Peggy’s hospitality. You know that we 
should love to have you.” 



It will be your turn next, Phil,' said Aunt Fin, noticing, perhaps, a silence that seemed 

unsympathetic P. 90. 























































































































HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


95 


“ Never mind, Phil,” said Aunt Fin, standing up, with a for- 
lorn air, “you did right to tell me. It isn’t your telling me 
hurts. It is that I should have stood in Peggy’s way. I dare say 
I can arrange to stand out of it at last, without troubling any one 
overmuch.” 

They went home in silence. 

The next day Miss Fin announced her intention of going to 
Dublin. 

“ No, Phil,” she said, “ I sha’n’t ask you to come with me, 
thank you all the same. I know Dublin has no attraction for you 
these hot days. Enjoy yourself your own way, my dear. In fact, 
I have business to do that I prefer to do alone.” 

Miss Fin looked older, grayer, sadder, that brilliant morning, 
and Phil’s heart smote her. Well, some one had to be hurt, and 
Aunt Peggy and Dncle Ralph had done without each other long 
enough. Aunt Fin would get over the revelation, and bend her 
pride so far as to take a seat in Mrs. Ralph Featherstonehaugh’s 
chimney-corner for the remaining years of her life. 

The afternoon dragged itself away in long golden hours, and 
still Aunt Fin did not return. Dinner-time came and went, and 
no Aunt Fin. Phil was a little alarmed then, for Aunt Fin was 
punctiliously polite, but no doubt she had stayed with Mrs. Max- 
well, or some other old friend, who had got over her scruples in 
the matter of allowing her hostesses to wait dinner. A telegram 
would not commend itself to Miss Fin’s mind. She always de- 
clared that she could never bear to send one lest it should frighten 
the recipient out of his or her wits. She might have written early 
in the day, believing the letter would reach them before dinner. 

With such thoughts Phil solaced her uneasiness till the dinner- 
hour had passed. Mrs. Featherstonehaugh was too busy about 
many things to be easily alarmed, and Phil would not have been, 
perhaps, if she had not been haunted by a memory of the old thin 
figure when Aunt Fin had stood upright after the talk last night, 
and the forlorn way she had folded herself in her lace shawl as 
though she would hide away her wounds. 


96 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


Rat-tat ! came the postman’s knock. Phil jumped up with a 
sigh of relief. That was most likely a letter from Aunt Fin. She 
saw the angular writing, indeed, as the maid brought in the letter 
on a tray. How foolish she had been to feel disturbed about it ! 

But as she read the letter, her eyes opened in amazement and 
concern. 

“My dearest Phil,” it ran. “I am going 'away to a quite 
happy and safe place, so that no one need be uneasy about me. I 
prefer to keep my address a secret for the present. As soon as 
Peggy has become Mrs. Ralph Featherstonehaugh, I shall let her 
know where I am. I don’t want to disturb any one, or make any 
one unhappy, if I can help it, any more than I have done in 
ignorance. I have written to Peggy, asking her to come to you 
at Sorrento. You will tell her all about it. I leave this to you, 
because 1 want no talk or eommotion about my temporary disap- 
pearance. Let Colombe have her visit unspoiled. Ho one need 
know except those immediately concerned. You will send my 
trunk to the cloak-room at Westland Row, whence it will be 
fetched. Tell Peggy, with my dear love, that as soon as I see her 
marriage in The Freeman’s Journal I shall write to her. My 
love and apologies to your dear mother. 

“ Your affectionate great-aunt, 

" Finola O’Kelly/’ 

Here was something to put Phil’s own troubles out of her 
mind. 

Her mother was unsympathetic: thought it very foolish of 
Aunt Fin, and wondered if marriage at Aunt Peggy’s age would 
be a becoming thing; hoped Peggy would not make a fuss about 
it, but if she must marry Ralph Featherstonehaugh, marry him as 
quickly and quietly as possible ; and so on, and so on. 

Phil spent a sleepless night, dreading the morrow that would 
bring Aunt Peggy to hear her explanations. What if, after all, 
she, too, refused to think of marriage at her age? Then she, Phil, 
would have caused all this trouble for nothing, and no one would 
thank her, and she would have dealt out useless suffering to those 
two she loved so dearly. 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


97 


The morning brought her help. They were sitting over a late 
breakfast when, of all persons in the world, Father Tom Kirwan 
presented himself and his cheerful countenance. 

fe Here I am, a most unfashionable caller,” he said, “ but Fve 
got a holiday, and Pm obliged to use every moment of my time. 
IPs twice as hard work as my parish, Phil, but as iPs the first 
holiday for five years Pm bound to make the most of it. Think 
what a traveled man Pll be when I get back. Why, Phil, child, 
whaPs the matter ? ” 

Phil proceeded to lay the whole story before him. 

“ Ho you know,” he said, when she had finished, “ I think Fin 
has done the right thing? Nothing else would ever have brought 
them up to the point. They should have been married years ago, 
but ’tis better late than never, and Fin has forced the pace for 
them at last. Poor Featherstonehaugh ! he has a miserable home. 
Some of my brethren would have set matters right long ago, but 
I’m a backward fellow about stepping in where I’m not asked. 
And match-making is delicate ground, very delicate ground, 
though there are plenty of good priests not afraid of it.” 

“ I’m frightened of Aunt Peggy,” said Phil. “ I’m afraid 
she’ll be angry with me.” 

“ Peggy’s anger would be as alarming as a robin’s. I couldn’t 
imagine being afraid of Peggy myself. And you’ve plenty of 
courage, Phil.” 

“ Not to face Aunt Peggy’s anger,” said Phil, slowly shaking 
her head. “ I have no courage at all for that.” 

CHAPTER XI. 

“great ado there was, god wot.” 

Father Tom suggested that Phil should take him for a walk 
and show him the beauties of the place during the hours before 
lunch-time. They could talk that way as well as another, and 
he guessed that it would be a kind thing to give Phil something 
to do while her mind was uneasy. Short of her own company 


98 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


Phil preferred this old friend’s to any one else’s at the present 
moment. Indeed, it was better than being alone, for was he not 
going to help her with Aunt Peggy, and could she not trust his 
shrewdness and good-will to do the utmost possible for them in 
this new trouble? 

Aunt Peggy could by no possibility arrive before evening, 
though most likely Miss Fin’s mysterious summons would bring 
her at once. 

Mrs. Featherstonehaugh had made a smiling apology for morn- 
ing hours that must be devoted to business, and had withdrawn 
herself to her table in the seaward-looking window, upon which 
ranges of formidable documents stood tied and docketed, with a 
basketful of letters awaiting answers. 

“Upon my word, ma’am,” said the priest jocularly, “you do 
so many good works that I wonder, now, if you find time for 
your prayers at all, at all.” 

“With me,” said Mrs. Featherstonehaugh, smiling compla- 
cently, “to labor is to pray.” 

As Phil and Father Tom went through the little town, he ex- 
cused himself for an instant and disappeared into the post-office. 

When he had rejoined Phil, and they had walked on toward 
the sea road, he mentioned that he had sent a telegram to Mr. 
Featherstonehaugh asking him to come. 

“What do you mean by that?” asked Phil, looking her confi- 
dence in him. 

“You wouldn’t have poor Peggy proposing to him, the crea- 
ture, after all the years he’s been satisfied to propose to her? 
She’d never do it, Phil. I’ve asked him to join me at my hotel. 
He must settle it with her to-morrow. It’s the direct way out 
of our difficulties. I know Fin, and if we did succeed in running 
her to earth, we’d never dislodge her till the time she has fixed 
for herself.” 

“How long shall we have to wait ? Poor Aunt Fin ! I shall 
hardly want to meddle with any one’s love affairs again.” 

The priest looked at her with kind, keen eyes. 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


99 


“You’re not the same. Phil. What have you been doing to 
yourself ?” 

Phil flushed darkly, a flush of pain, so different from the flush 
of happiness. 

“Never mind,” said Father Tom, hastily — “unless it’s some- 
thing I can help in. Forget that I asked the question, Phil.” 

They were silent for a few minutes. By the time they spoke 
again they had come within sight of the shining stretch of sea 
and the lovely Silver Spears of Wicklow. Bray in its smoke 
looked as though wrapped in silver veils. 

“ThereTl be no unraveling the mystery for three weeks. It’ll 
take that to get them married,” went on Father Tom, as though 
he took up an interrupted conversation. “I’ll marry them my- 
self. You’ll have to distract Peggy for that space of time. 
She’ll have to get some fal-lals, won’t she ?” 

“I dare say Uncle Ralph will distract her,” said Phil, faintly 
smiling. “But your holiday, Father Tom? You were going to 
London.” 

“Is it spending my money on the Saxons I’d be instead of 
staying at home to marry my chief parishioners? You wouldn’t 
think it of me, Phil ?” 

“You’ll only have a week or so left,” sighed Phil. 

“I’ll put it in at Lisdoonvarna. I was there five years ago: 
it was a grand place. I’ll do my travels this time five years again, 
please God.” 

Phil was very glad later of Father Tom’s support, for what 
did Miss Peggy do when she arrived and was informed of the 
state of affairs but fly like a fury at poor Phil. It was half 
comical, and Phil had a hard struggle to keep from laughter, 
though her heart was heavy enough. The incongruity of it re- 
minded her irresistibly of a tiny black kitten at Castle O’Kelly, 
the descendant of a famous line of mousers much in request. 
The kitten had been left longer than its fellows, and had gone 
wild before its new owner came to claim it. Such fury, such 
scratching, and spitting and swearing ensued before the kitten 


L.ofC. 


100 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


could be caught that Phil, who looked on, had been reduced to 
a state of helpless laughter. At last, with precautions sufficient 
for the capture of a cobra, it had been somehow got into a very 
large sack, in which it still tore and scratched, a small bundle 
of claws and fury. 

“Glory be to goodness, miss,” said its new owner to Phil, “that 
it isn’t the size of a lion or tiger it is !” 

Phil was at once wounded and tickled by Aunt Peggy’s rage 
at her unfortunate interposition. Afterward she went into 
shrieks of unhappy laughter as she thought over it alone. Aunt 
Peggy was, of course, very soon deeply repentant; and she had 
only shown her claws a little before Father Tom came to the 
rescue. 

“Tut! tut! Peggy woman,” he said. “Phil only saw what 
every one saw, that you ought to have married Featherstonehaugh 
long ago, and that it was better late than never. If I’d done 
my duty as your pastor I should have married the pair of you 
by force a score years ago.” 

After all, he had done the best thing to make Peggy happy till 
it was time for her sister to reveal herself. 

Mr. Featherstonehaugh came in just before lunch the next 
day, looking as if twenty years had been rolled off his shoulders, 
and kissed his bride before them all. 

“I’ve made all the arrangements, Peggy,” he said. “It’s to be 
on the fifteenth of September. Here’s your engagement ring. 
I’ve had it for you all these years, and you may as well have it, 
though it seems hardly worth your while wearing it now. I’ve 
been to a tailor’s, Peggy, for my wedding-suit. Think of that, 
Peggy — my wedding-suit at last! Upon my word, I’ll never 
forget it to you, Phil.” 

Peggy cried a little softly into her handkerchief because she 
pictured Fin somewhere, hurt while she was happy; but it was 
wonderful how her old lover persuaded her to resignation and 
patience. 

There was a little shopping to be done, a gray silk to be 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


101 


bought for Aunt Peggy’s wedding-dress out of Peggy’s private 
purse, and made with a puritanical white muslin fichu which 
Phil felt sure would have pleased even Colombe. There were a 
few other things, of course, but Peggy seemed to have such a 
fine stock of dainty, if rather yellowed, underwear already, that 
shrewd Phil suspected a trousseau laid by secretly long ago. 

Peggy openly derived a very sweet pleasure from her pur- 
chases. Most of the rest of the time was spent in sober happiness 
with her lover. They were out all day about the beautiful coun- 
try; and it was a touching thing to see the quiet devotion of 
the two to each other, and how something of their prime came 
back to the two perfectly contented faces. 

Peggy’s manner to Phil was full of a tender contrition for 
that outburst of temper, probably the first of her gentle life; 
and her mind was only eased at last when Phil laughed at it, 
mocking her with the story of the black kitten. 

Colombe knew nothing yet of all these doings. Miss Peggy 
was mysterious about Colombe, with a transparent mystery which 
Phil read like a printed page. 

“Let the child be,” she said; “let her be! If we snatched 
her away before her time it might be very unfair to Colombe; 
and her hosts would be so dreadfully disappointed.” 

From this Phil gathered that Colombe had not yet reached 
a crisis in her affairs, and that Aunt Peggy, for all her keen 
interest in such matters, was somewhat baffled and at fault. 
Colombe’s letters grew less and less communicative. What mat- 
ter? thought Phil. Any man whom Colombe wanted was hardly 
likely to resist her, and apparently she (Phil) had dropped out 
of the Lismores’ world. There was never a suggestion that they 
remembered her. Phil could emulate that indifference, though 
she did not like to think that Mrs. Lismore, who had seemed to 
like her so much — that she too could be so engrossed in Colombe 
as never to remember Phil. 

However, if she asked no questions of Aunt Peggy, her friend. 
Father Tom, was not so reticent. 


102 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


“Is Colombe going to carry oft Grace Lismore’s boy ?” he 
asked. 

Miss Peggy confessed that it seemed not unlikely. 

“I thought it might have been Phil,” he said; “but of course 
Fm a dull fellow and a bad hand at the match-making, as no 
one knows better than yourself. Still, I thought it might have 
been Phil.” 

“There was a friendship between them,” acknowledged Miss 
Peggy. “But Phil can be very friendly with gentlemen without 
any question of love-making. Phil’s so sensible.” 

“I suppose I was mistaken. Is there any one else for Phil?” 

“Colombe did say something one day about a young gentleman 
we met once or twice at the Mall, a Mr. Yanhomeigh. I used 
to think he was a spark of Colombe’s, but it seems it was Phil, 
after all.” 

“Fallen out with him, I expect,” thought the priest to him- 
self. “Poor Phil ! And she wouldn’t quarrel lightly. There’s 
nothing to be done. If she was a peasant-girl one might be 
giving her a helping hand.” 

Phil had seen nothing of Piers Yanhomeigh since her return. 
She had heard casually that he was away, and supposed that he 
had not returned. She was fond of Piers, and when she thought 
of him it was with a keen sympathy. She did not believe that 
he would forget Colombe easily or that he would turn for consola- 
tion to the other girl who had fancied him. She and Piers 
were in the same boat, she said to herself drearily — in the same 
boat. 

She was prepared to be kind to Piers when he called at Sor- 
rento Terrace one day and found her alone. He looked harassed 
and unlike his old, bright self, and leaner than of old. 

“Where is Colombe?” he asked presently, looking down at his 
straw hat, which he was turning about restlessly. 

“Did you expect to see her, Piers?” asked Phil, with an ache 
of sympathy. “She is out of town, at a place called Knockarea, 
near Adare. She is staying with some new friends of ours, the 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER . 


103 


Lismores. You must have heard of the wreck of Mr. Lismore’s 
yacht when we were staying at Castle O’Kelly.” 

“Lismore, Lismore,” repeated Piers. “I think I know the 
man. He was of my year in college. A very handsome man, 
dark, and dresses well without being a dandy. He was rather 
a brilliant fellow, I think.” 

“That would be the same.” 

“Ah, so Colombe is staying there! She has done very well 
without me.” 

His young face was grim, and a frown contracted his eye- 
brows over his usually merry eyes. 

“It was a stupid quarrel,” said Phil. 

“You know about it ?” 

“You misunderstood Colombe, Piers. She spoke hastily, 
without thinking.” 

Piets’ honest face turned scarlet. 

“People make so free sometimes with a lady’s name. It 
wasn’t true, of course. Miss Pike is going to be married.” 

“Ah ! I hadn’t heard. I hope she is going to be very happy. 
I ought to have seen Rachel, but I’ve been very busy since I 
came back from Castle O’Kelly. Whom is she going to marry, 
Piers ?” 

“A man of her own religion, John Armytage, old enough to 
be her father, but a good fellow. The marriage makes her people 
happy.” 

“Ah, poor Rachel !” 

“ She won’t be unhappy ; she is too good,” said the young 
fellow, wincing. “He is awfully fond of her, and she is too 
sweet not to care in return. But Colombe — what is Colombe 
doing not to have missed me ?” 

The naivete of the question made Phil smile. 

“I can hardly imagine that she would not miss you,” she said 
kindly. 

“She may think she does not for a little while,” he went on 
doggedly. “I know Colombe. But she would very soon get 


104 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


tired of being without me. Lismore would not make her 
happy.” 

“Why did you keep it up. Piers ? — the quarrel, I mean.” 

“She has tried me a great deal. I thought I would stay away 
a little while. But I have missed her, and I was down after 
returning from Italy with a touch of malaria.” 

“I thought you did not look well. I hope it is quite done 
with.” 

“I am all right, thank you. I suppose I have missed 
Colombe’s refusals.” 

They were interrupted then; and had no further chance of 
talking privately together. Again Phil had her misgivings as 
to whether she had been right in making Colombe’s way easy. 
Piers had seemed confident about Colombe’s feeling for himself, 
and Piers was no coxcomb. Phil was oddly impressed by his 
belief. Ah, well, if it was so, Colombe would no doubt discover 
her true feelings in time. 

But a day later, the very eve of Aunt Peggy’s marriage, 
Colombe and her affairs were put out of Phil’s head by another 
happening. 

CHAPTER XII. 

AUNT FIN IS FOUND. 

Everything was ready for the quiet little ceremony of the 
morning, after which the newly married couple were to go for 
a little honeymoon to Grlendalagh, where they could be easily 
recalled as soon as Miss Fin had revealed her hiding-place. 

A calm had settled down on the house. Phil peeped into her 
Aunt Peggy’s room, and caught sight of its occupant on her 
knees, with an uplifted face and an expression of somewhat 
troubled thankfulness. She closed the door and went out. She 
knew what brought the shadow into the bride’s joy. Ah, well, 
a day or two longer, and Aunt Fin would have revealed herself 
and all would be well. 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


105 


The house was so still that the lapping of the water outside 
could be heard distinctly within. Mrs. Featherstonehaugh’s 
canary was singing shrilly to break the sleepy spell; and Pat, 
the terrier puppy at Phil’s heels, followed her with a frill of 
her skirt in his mouth. Looking from the staircase window, 
Phil caught a sight of her Uncle Ralph, smoking a contented 
pipe among the nursemaids and babies in Sorrento grounds, 
waiting for his affianced to join him. 

He had his back to the house, so he did not see Father Tom 
Kirwan enter hastily. 

Phil, coming down the stairs, was in time to hear the priest 
ask for her. 

“Well?” she asked, leading the way into the dining-room. 
They had not expected Father Tom before evening. 

“Fin is found, Phil,” he said breathlessly, “and upon my 
word, that same finding puts us in a quandary.” 

“Where is she?” 

“Peggy mustn’t know — till she’s married, at least. I hope we 
shall bring Fin to her senses. She’s in a home for distressed 
ladies, victims of the land agitation. You know the kind of 
place.” 

“Ah !” cried Phil sharply. “It would break Aunt Peggy’s 
heart. How could she do it? With so many houses open to 
her.” 

“I came to ask you if you’d go with me and try to persuade 
her to come back. I know Fin. She’s a tough nut to crack.” 

“Hush,” said Phil, with a finger to her lip. “I hear Aunt 
Peggy coming down-stairs.” 

The light feet passed the door. They heard the door open 
and shut, and watched Peggy cross the road to the grounds. She 
was dressed daintily in a gray cashmere with little touches of 
white about it, and a close-fitting bonnet. 

“Upon my word, Peggy’s become a young woman again,” 
said the priest, putting Phil’s thought into words. 

“If she has to be told, Uncle Ralph must break it to her. 


106 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


She’ll take it better from him than any one else. When is there 
a train?” 

He looked at his watch. 

“In a quarter of an hour, Phil. Just time to put on your bon- 
net. You’ll tell your mother?” 

“She doesn’t like to be disturbed at this hour. I shall leave 
word that I am gone out with you and may possibly be late for 
lunch. That will secure me a good many hours, for mamma 
will never think of me again till dinner-time.” 

“She’s reared you well, Phil, and now she has no further 
anxiety about you.” 

“She has so many orphans and widows and criminals and 
penitents on her mind.” 

Phil left her message with the maid-servant and set out with 
Father Tom. On the way he told her how a lucky chance had 
put him in the way of discovering Fin’s hiding-place. In the 
course of a leisurely chat with Mrs. Maxwell that lady had hap- 
pened to mention a friend of hers, a woman of unbounded 
charity, whose good deeds she seemed to regard in a manner 
widely different from the somewhat cynical air she assumed to- 
ward Mrs. Featherstonehaugh’s philanthropic labors. 

“I remember Sarah Lloyd, the gayest of the gay,” she had 
said, “and dignified as an empress for all her high spirits. I 
used often to admire her when she stood receiving her guests at 
one of her receptions. She dressed magnificently, and, faith, 
pearls and diamonds never found a whiter cushion than her 
neck. Then her husband and her only child were suddenly 
swept away from her by that awful thing, diphtheria. The 
thought of it makes me glad I’m a childless woman. The boy 
caught it first; and poor Malachi held him in his arms when he 
was dying.” 

“I remember,” said Phil, interrupting. “There was no heir, 
and Mrs. Lloyd sold everything and gave it to the poor. Her 
name is blessed wherever she goes.” 

“Those very pearls and diamonds, Phil, she put into a fund 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


107 


to help the distressed ladies. It was a delicate charity, and no 
one was better fit to handle it than Mrs. Sarah Lloyd. She 
helps them secretly, in their homes if they can keep them. If 
not, they come into the home she has provided for them. I’m 
a poor old rustic, and I was glad to hear of those good deeds, 
Phil. I’d never heard of this lady before, though no doubt 
she’s well known in Dublin.” 

“I’ve seen her,” said Phil. “An elderly woman with beauti- 
ful clear skin and gray eyes of youth, more shining eyes than 
fall to the lot of any girl except a fortunate one.” 

“Ah, then, I think I saw her pass out as I went into the 
Home.” 

“You’ve been there?” 

“I’ve been there. I just found out that my guess was right, 
that Fin was within those four walls, then I came away.” 

“How did you suspect it ?” 

“Well, I was listening to Mrs. Maxwell’s discourse upon 
many things, including this Mrs. Lloyd. Mrs. Maxwell’s a great 
favorite of mine, you know, Phil, though I can’t forgive Domi- 
nick for being an absentee from my parish. I believe Mount 
Maxwell is in my parish, although it is twenty miles from 
Castle O’Kelly. She was surprised at my not knowing about 
this Home. ‘Finola O’Kelly,’ she said, ‘used to know Sarah 
Lloyd, and I’ve heard her say that if ever she wanted a shelter 
for her head she’d ask Sarah to take her in, because a place that 
Sarah ruled must have something of heaven about it.’ I didn’t 
say a word, for of course even Mrs. Maxwell needn’t know of 
Fin’s escapade till it’s over; and I don’t think I betrayed an 
undue impatience to be gone. But as soon as I could take my 
leave politely I was off to the Home, to find that I had got on 
the right track, after all.” 

“She doesn’t know 3'ou’ve found her out ?” 

“She couldn’t make a bolt for it if she did; but she doesn’t. 
I interviewed a very sweet-looking young lady, who seems to be 
a sort of secretary and helper of Mrs. Lloyd’s. She is apparently 


108 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


used to dealing with delicate susceptibilities, for when I asked 
her not to let Miss O’Kelly know I had called until I came again 
she seemed quite to understand. ‘Some of them don’t like, at 
first/ she said, ‘to let their friends know they are here, but 
presently they grow to love it. It is really a home, for we 
have practically neither rules nor restrictions. One doesn’t need 
them with ladies. The only trouble is that we are very poor: 
but ladies bear that really better, strange as it may seem, than 
poor people.’ ” 

Talking like this they arrived at Westward Row, and were 
soon in a cab driving to the steep Northward Street wherein 
Mrs. Lloyd’s home was situated. 

They were shown, by a pretty, fresh-looking maid, into a 
reception-room at one side of the hall. It was a narrow, high 
room, with a very ornate ceiling of fine stucco-work, and walls 
similarly decorated. The stained floor was highly beeswaxed; 
there was a beautiful old, high brass fender, and the chairs and 
tall settee were Louis Quinze covered in red brocade, much 
faded and worn in places. 

Mrs. Lloyd came to them at once. 

Phil, who was yet young enough to have a capacity for hero- 
worship, fell metaphorically at the lady’s feet as she found her- 
self greeted with an almost motherly kindness. 

“I knew your father, my child,” Mrs. Lloyd said, “and 
Marcella Maxwell has talked to me of you and your sister. We 
ought to have known each other earlier.” 

Heavenly contemplation sat indeed on the lady’s broad brow 
and in the calm depths of her radiant eyes. Phil looked up at 
her wonderingly. Where were the traces of the human desola- 
tion that had swept over her long ago? Perhaps in the lines 
of the exquisite mouth, perhaps in the low voice full of sym- 
pathy, perhaps in the constancy and courage of her gaze. 

“And what is this about Finola O’Kelly, Father Kirwan?” 
she asked, still holding Phil’s hand. “Perhaps I ought not to 
ask till she tells me herself,” 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


109 


“She will tell you herself as soon as we see her, ma’am,” 
replied Father Tom. “She’s been running away from us, that’s 
all, and making us all unhappy about her.” 

“That’s not like Finola,” said Mrs. Lloyd. 

“Not so far as you see it, ma’am. It happened in this way. 
She had reason to believe that she had been standing in the way 
of her sister’s marriage.” 

“Peggy ? I remember Peggy O’Kelly — a very pretty creature.” 

“She’s that still, ma’am, as you’d say if you saw her this 
morning. But, like many good women, she was astray in her 
notions about self-sacrifice. If you’ll believe me, Mrs. Lloyd, 
there’s no virtue so much abused, in real life as well as in the 
story-books. Well, after Peggy had sacrificed herself and a good 
man for years to save Fin’s susceptibilities, what does her sister 
do but hide away from us and nearly frighten us into fits ? Peggy 
wouldn’t leave her and she wouldn’t be a burden to Peggy, and 
between the two of them they’ve played the mischief with poor 
Featherstonehaugh’s life altogether.” 

“Featherstonehaugh ? This child’s ” 

“Granduncle, ma’am, though you’d never believe it, any more 
than you’d believe Peggy her great-aunt. Peggy’ll be Mrs. 
Featherstonehaugh to-morrow, please God. It was Fin’s idea 
to let her know where she was as soon as Peggy was safely mar- 
ried. But if we can’t persuade her to come home it will be 
worse when Peggy knows where she is. They’ve never been 
separated, ma’am.” 

“I understand. Then we must try to persuade Finola, 
though she’s very happy here. We are all friends and equals 
here, and a most happy household, I assure you.” 

“I can believe it,” said Phil, with a fervor that made Mrs. 
Lloyd smile. 

“Don’t you think it dreadfully bare and poverty-stricken?” 
she asked. 

“This is a beautiful room,” said Phil. “An ordinary room 
would be vulgar by contrast/’ 


110 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


Mrs. Lloyd looked around her. 

“What we have is beautiful,” she said. “You must see the 
drawing-room presently. Everything belongs to the ladies. 
Some people would think we ought to sell these and give the 
money to the poor; but I think they ought to keep their little 
refinements. Of course we don’t appeal at all to outside charity. 
That is what makes us so poor. It would be so hard for them 
if we did. I only wished we owned our house, or that some one 
would give us a house in the country. We should love our rural 
seclusion, and our only condition otherwise w T ould be that we 
should have a church close at hand. I am trying to obtain for 
them the privilege of having Mass in the house if we stay here; 
but perhaps God will send us a country house. We are all from 
the green fields, and these houses, despite their stately propor- 
tions, are sad, very sad.” 

Phil looked across at the great ghostly houses, full of memo- 
ries, that shut out the sky on the other side of the street. 

“It is like living among graves,” she said. 

“It is brighter upstairs. I will ask Finola to show you the 
house as soon as you have had your interview with her. Of 
course it is natural places like this should be sad to the young; 
but, my dear, it is a place of peace and rest to many who come 
to it.” 

“I was wrong to say that,” said Phil. “I was only thinking 
of the street. No house could be sad over which you ruled.” 

Father Tom had listened to all this in his shrewd, observant 
way. Now he broke in with a laugh. 

“If Phil was in your house, ma’am, instead of her great- 
aunt, I’d never dislodge her. I’m very glad you haven’t put 
your spell on Phil so far as that, for we can’t spare her.” 

“Poor Phil! She has happier things in store for her,” said 
Mrs. Lloyd, patting the girl’s hand. 

What a mother the little dead child had lost, thought Phil, 
and oh, if all mothers might be like that! How she had once 
worshiped her own pretty, gentle mother in the days before her 



“ Phil took her by the shoulders and shook her” P. 113. 









































































































. 











HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


113 


father had become all in all to her, and she had learned to be 
satisfied with the light caress or the indifferent kindness which 
Columba Featherstonehangh had bestowed upon her girls ! Like 
many another woman, Columba would perhaps have given a son 
that maternal passion which her daughters had never awakened. 

“You must come and see me often, Phil,” Mrs. Lloyd was 
saying, “if you can get over the dreary street and the melancholy 
journey through this sad old part of the city. Now I shall send 
your aunt to you.” 

A minute later Aunt Fin entered the room, wearing an ex- 
pression of mingled obstinacy and shamefacedness. 

Phil took her by the shoulders and shook her. She was taller 
than either of her aunts. 

“How dare you, Aunt Fin,” she said, “and you our guest, 
too ! How dare you ! Aunt Peggy is to be married to-morrow, 
and yet she grieves for you. Come away home with us. You 
shall dance at the wedding, for all your badness. Come home 
with us at once, and make Aunt Peggy’s joy complete.” 

Fin’s thin lips met in a straight line. 

“You shouldn’t have tracked me here, Phil, nor you, Father 
Tom. You ought to have known better. And Fm not coming 
home. I’m never coming home any more.” 

CHAPTEP XIII. 

FATHER TOM AND PHIL HAVE A PLAN. 

Phil put back the old figure at arm’s length and stared at 
the pale, determined face. 

“You hear her, Father Tom ?” she said. “She says she will 
never come home any more. Do you think Aunt Fin has gone 
crazy ?” 

“Not a bit of it,” said Miss O’Kelly. “Only I’m going to 
stay where I am. What should I do at Castle O’Kelly, a lonely 
old ghost of a woman with all my contemporaries departed ? I’ll 


114 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


sell the few sticks there are left there — Peggy won’t object to 
that — and I’ll stay here and be a burden to nobody while my old 
bones cumber the earth.” 

“Do you think we’re going to let you do that ?” 

“Nothing can prevent me, Phil, if I want to.” 

“Do you want to break Aunt Peggy’s heart?” 

There was a sharp ring of anxiety in Phil’s voice. It was 
quite true that if Aunt Fin chose to stay where she was, nothing 
on earth could prevent her. And what would Aunt Peggy say? 
And it was entirely her fault for meddling. They were all going 
on happily enough before she (Phil) took it upon herself to play 
at Providence. 

“It won’t break Peggy’s heart,” replied Aunt Fin, without a 
touch of cynicism. “Peggy will have her husband. Once the 
husband steps in, Phil, my girl, the sister steps out, as perhaps 
you’ll find one of these days.” 

“I don’t know where you’ve been learning such horrid, per- 
verted things,” said Phil, big tears coming into her eyes, “but 
I think you’re a wicked old woman, Aunt Fin, to run away from 
every one who loves you like this, and then to go opposing your 
selfish will to us all and saying you won’t come back.” 

“Let me be, child,” said Aunt Fin, with dignity. “What 
place is there for me in the world? I’ve found my place here.” 

“Among a lot of people you didn’t know a month ago. Just 
listen to her, Father Tom.” 

“Among women chastened by much suffering, and with the 
sight of a real saint before my eyes every day I live.” 

Phil waved away this reference to Mrs. Lloyd. She was too 
near to sympathy with Aunt Fin on the point, and she was not 
going to encourage her. 

“Why should you leave your home to live among destitute 
ladies? You are not destitute.” 

A sudden light came into Aunt Fin’s plain face. 

“I choose destitution,” she said. “I’ve only begun to make 
my soul since I came here. I’ve been a worldly-minded old 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


115 


woman all my days. I’m obliged to yon, Phil, for leading me 
at last to the knowledge that the world is dust and ashes.” 

“Listen to her, Father Tom,” said Phil, despairingly. “She’ll 
be saying next that she’s an example of a great conversion.” 

“You were always a good woman, Fin,” said the priest half 
comically, “barring a bit of a temper, especially when you were 
beaten at cards. We’ve all got much to repent of, but I dare 
say you could make your soul just as well at Castle O’Kelly. My 
poor will miss you next winter if you go. It would be a bad 
thing for them and the like of them if all the good people were 
to shut themselves up in convents and such-like places and 
think only of making their own souls.” 

“It isn’t a convent at all, then, Father Tom,” said Miss Fin 
indignantly. “I’m too old to take to convent ways, and every 
one here is the same. But there’s a church across the way, and 
you can say your prayers whenever you like; and, on the other 
hand, there’s a good story-book to read, and some one to chat to, 
and you can go out and see a friend if you like — not that I 
should want to, lest people should say the O’Kellys were come 
down in the world — and we’ve a game of cards at night. There’s 
a Mrs. Dingenan here plays as good a game of spoil five as ever 
I wish to see.” 

Father Tom burst out laughing. 

“Upon my word you frighten me, Fin,” he said, “but I see 
you’re the old Fin after all. Let her alone, Phil! ’Tis pure 
selfishness and obstinacy on her part. She has found a place 
where she has everything she wants, and she forgets me and my 
parish. You’d think there was never a church or a priest out- 
side of Dublin. Just think of the winters I’m going to have, 
Phil, with the one little social recreation of my life gone be- 
cause your Aunt Fin has found a Mrs. Dingenan who plays a 
good game of spoil five.” 

But argue or laugh at her as they would, Miss O’Kelly was 
immovable. 

“Tell Peggy to come to see me as soon as she can forgive me,” 


116 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


she said. “I don’t grudge her her happiness, and she needn’t 
grudge me my contentment. Tell her and tell her mother and 
Colombe that there’s nothing to be ashamed of in my being here. 
The sale of the furniture at Castle O’Kelly will keep me for the 
few years I have to live. And tell them there are better women 
than me here — not in regard of blood/’ she added hastily; 
“didn’t Cormac MacArt, the High King of Ireland, marry an 
O’Kelly? — but in regard to other things.” 

“None of us will be a bit reconciled,” said Phil, almost 
sullenly. She was beginning to feel the uselessness of striving 
with Aunt Fin. 

“Don’t be vexed with me, child.” 

Miss O’Kelly was changed now, for she saw that Phil had 
given up the fight. 

“I shall always be vexed with you,” said Phil, “especially 
as it is my fault.” 

“So far as your influence went you have dealt good things 
all round, child. Don’t let your Aunt Peggy bother me, Phil — 
to come back, I mean. Tell her it’s useless.” 

“I won’t promise to do you any favors, Aunt Fin.” 

“Then do them without promising. Tell Peggy to come 
when she has made up her mind I am going to stay.” 

“If youve made up your mind, Fin,” said the priest, “Peggy 
will know the uselessness of trying to alter it.” 

“Come and see where I live,” said Miss O’Kellv, as though 
the discussion were at an end. “You’ll be more reconciled then. 
It’s a grand place for them that are done with the world, barring 
that I’d like a bit of green about the place.” 

“The sycamores of Castle O’Kelly will have the pale gold of 
corn now,” said Phil. 

Miss O’Kelly winced for the first time. 

“Don’t talk about Castle O’Kelly,” she said. “I little thought 
I was bidding it good-by.” 

“What will you do with Bodkin and Mrs. MacNally and all 
of them?” 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


117 


“Peggy will see to them. She’ll want a new staff in that 
ruinous old Featherstonehaugh Hall.” 

“And what about Castle O’Kelly?” 

“What good is it to any one?” Miss O’Kelly’s face was 
crossed by a spasm of pain. “Ireland is full of old houses that 
once cradled a family and are tottering to pieces. Let it die. 
When I am gone there won’t be an O’Kelly left.” 

“We’ll find a better use for it. Fin,” put in Father Tom. 

“No police barracks or anything like that !” said the owner. 

“We’ve no use for police, as you ought to know. Fin. I’ve 
a plan, though, and you’ll fall in with it. Ask me no questions, 
Fin, woman. I’ll tell you in time. Come, now, and show us 
your fine house.” 

They went up a wide stone staircase with a balustrading of 
beautiful iron-work. The walls on either hand were covered with 
the same flowery stucco-work as the room they had left. On the 
ceiling a hunting scene in the same medium hung in rounded 
stalactites. The hall was paved in diamonds of black and white 
marble. Everything was spotlessly clean, but bare as the stable 
of Bethlehem. 

Double doors of deep wine-red mahogany gave entrance to 
the drawing-rooms. A cheerful fire burned in the brass grate 
of the smaller one, for the September day had a hint of autumn 
in it, and old blood runs slowly. 

Perhaps a dozen old ladies were in the room. Some were 
doing exquisitely fine embroidery on linen; some were painting; 
one was copying music; two were playing at dominoes; one was 
reading a newspaper. 

To this last, a spirited old lady with a face like Dresden 
china, Miss O’Kelly introduced her visitors. It was the Mrs. 
Dingenan of whom she had spoken. The old lady motioned them 
to chairs as beautiful as those Phil had admired down-stairs, and 
beautifully covered in bright old chintz. 

“It is a pleasure to meet any friends of Miss O’Kelly,” the 
old lady said, with a magnified condescension. “We have found 


118 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


Miss O’Kelly a great addition to our circle. It is a pleasure 
to welcome the young among us.” 

Phil thought at first that the compliment was to herself. 
Then she saw that the old lady was not thinking of her, but of 
her Aunt Fin. Miss O’Kelly, indeed, with her erect, spare form 
and hair only lightly sprinkled with gray, looked what they call 
in Ireland “a slip” among the very old ladies who were in the 
room. 

The recipient of the compliment seemed pleased. Thinking 
of her great-aunt’s close on seventy years, Phil recalled the say- 
ing: “In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king.” 
Well, it must be nice, she acknowledged mentally, to find one’s 
lost youth ready for praises among those dear, smiling old 
ladies. 

The room had a scent of yesterday’s roses. Then, too, the 
austere bits of furniture and china were exquisite of their kind, 
though the floor was bare, and the mere accessories of the room 
called loudly for renewing. 

“I shall pray you to take me in here some day,” said Phil, and 
was surprised at her own fervor in saying it. 

“You, my dear!” said Mrs. Dingenan, as much surprised as 
though Phil were born yesterday. “The world will have many 
and many a change before you are eligible for a place like this. 
Certainly I sha’n’t be here to welcome you, although I am quite 
young, I must confess, as compared to some. I might be a 
daughter of Mrs. Tollemache over there” — she lowered her voice 
as she indicated an old lady dozing over her knitting in one cor- 
ner — “and she’s not our oldest inhabitant, nor I think so old as 
she pretends to be. Ladies, you know, my child, will sometimes 
pretend to be older than they are.” 

“Some pretend to be younger,” said Phil. 

Mrs. Dingenan looked at her as though from an immeasurable 
distance. 

“That seems rather foolish,” she said severely. “I tell the 
truth about my age. I am eighty-four.” 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


119 


“I shouldn’t have thought it,” said Phil. 

“It is true all the same,” said Mrs. Dingenan, with such an 
offended air that Phil vaguely suspected she had seemed rude. 

“I am very sorry ” she began hesitatingly. 

“Never mind, child,” said the old lady, her charming smile 
coming back. “You spoke thoughtlessly. If you look closely at 
me you’ll see that I might be taken for more.” 

“It wouldn’t be so nice without you,” said Phil, abandoning 
the dangerous subject. 

Mrs. Dingenan took up a little fan that lay in an old china 
bowl at her elbow and rapped Phil’s shoulder with it, looking 
well pleased. 

“You’re a flatterer, child,” she said. “But all the same I 
don’t think you’ll ever need such a friend as we’ve found in our 
day of trial. Utterly unforeseen trial, my dear, for those who 
loved us in our heyday thought they had done well by us. You’ll 
never be loved better than some of us were, no matter how 
well you are loved. I only pray there may be no such deluge — 
no such deluge to sweep away the provision love makes for you.” 

Phil looked down at her clasped hands in her lap. She did 
not know how to answer. 

“Now talk to Father Kirwan, Mrs. Dingenan,” said Miss 
O’Kelly, with the briskness belonging to her reputed youth, “and 
introduce him to some of our friends. I’m going to take my 
niece upstairs.” 

She showed Phil the big bedroom which she shared with Mrs. 
Dingenan and two other old ladies. The little iron beds, modem 
and ugly, were screened off in their corners, and, peeping be- 
hind the scenes, Phil saw the photographs, the books, the bits 
of china and needlework with which ladyhood loves to surround 
itself. 

“A’ little more space and the country; that is all we need, 
Phil, for our perfect contentment,” said Miss O’Kelly, with a 
sigh. 

“I felt as though I had been trying to draw Aunt Fin from 


120 


HER FATHERS DAUGHTER. 


the Elysian fields back to earth/’ said Phil later, when she and 
Father Tom were once in the dreary streets. 

“I think you left Fin pretty bare when you stripped her of 
Peggy/’ said the priest. “She is warming herself by a new 
hearth-fire.” 

“I don’t think she’ll ever leave it/’ said Phil, with a sigh. 

“I don’t think we ought to ask her, Phil.” 

“I suppose they squabble sometimes,” said Phil wonderingly. 
“All women do. We can’t have come upon an entire company 
of elect ladies.” 

“They’re human, you may depend, or Fin would be out of 
it,” said Father Tom, with a chuckle. “All the same I’d like 
to have them in my parish. They’d bring a blessing on it, even 
if there is covetousness and ill-feeling about the number of 
their years.” 

“Ah,” cried Phil, with sudden enlightenment, “so that’s 
what you are thinking of !” 

“ ’Tis a queer thing it was left to me, and Fin, heart-broken 
at leaving Castle O’Kelly, to die a natural death.” 

“I see them,” cried Phil in an ecstasy, “in those great rooms, 
and the garden and the orchard and the fowl and the lovely 
wild country! Bodkin will stay there and be a proud man. 
Why, Aunt Fin confided to me that that drawing-room held the 
best blood of Ireland.” 

“We shall see, we shall see. Fin has to be consulted and 
Peggy and Mrs. Lloyd.” 

“Every one will be delighted. And you will be their chap- 
lain; and you must make the ball-room of Castle O’Kelly into 
a chapel. I shall come there when I am old.” 

The priest looked at her wistfully. He had a great affec- 
tion for the girls he had known from babyhood. 

“There are happier things in store for you, child,” he said. 

“ Could anything be happier?” asked Phil, older than her 
years. 

Her dream that night was of Castle O’Kelly, and of herself 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


121 


kneeling on the threshold in a long black veil, while Mrs. Lloyd, 
with the face of an angel, came to lift her up and bid her enter. 

All the same she cried poignantly in her dreams for some 
other fate she once had had a glimpse of, and when she awoke 
her cheeks were wet with her tears. 

CHAPTER XIV. 
colombe’s way. 

“Colombe will never forgive me,” said Phil, after the bridal 
pair had departed, “for keeping her in ignorance of all these 
strange doings. I am going to write a long letter and tell her 
all about them.” 

“I’m very glad the wedding was so early,” said Mrs. Feather- 
stonehaugh, surveying the spoiled glories of the pretty break- 
fast-table which Phil had arranged with loving hands. “It 
gives one one’s day practically undisturbed.” 

“I feel very unsettled,” said Phil. “It is the usual effect 
of those ceremonies.” 

“You can afford to be,” said her mother indulgently. “I 
am a little wheel in a great machine, and if I stop the whole 
thing stops.” 

“Well, I’d better be going, and I shall try to propitiate 
Colombe, who will always believe that Aunt Peggy went forth 
a guy on her wedding morning, because she was not here to 
superintend the bride’s toilet.” 

The bridegroom had departed for his honeymoon, charged 
to break the news of Fin’s place of refuge to his bride, and 
happily confident of being able to reconcile her to everything. 
If Fin was to be their neighbor at Castle O’Kelly all would be 
delightful, and Peggy’s tender heart would not need to reproach 
itself with leaving her sister lonely forever. Father Tom had 
volunteered to conduct the negotiations with Miss Lloyd. There 
was little doubt about Fin’s giving her consent. So things 
seemed to be coming right in that direction after all. 


122 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


And now Colombe had to be told of all these events and proj- 
ects. 

Her visit had lengthened itself out beyond what was intended, 
a sure sign that things were going well, Phil thought, in a heart 
that knew its own bitterness. 

Now that the distraction of Aunt Peggy’s and Aunt Fin’s 
affairs, which had been helping Phil of late, was removed, her 
own troubles returned. The sight of a letter from Colombe on 
the table turned her cold with apprehension once more. She 
never knew the day when she might be called upon to hear 
Colombe’s great news, to sing her epithalamium with her. Alas ! 
alas ! Phil was no more reconciled now than she had been two 
months ago. With a sickness of disgust at her own folly and 
weakness, she recognized that she was no more ready to accept 
Colombe’s probable husband in sisterly fashion than she had been 
at the beginning. She was still the unready, all her defenses 
down, her weak places unguarded, when any day she might be 
called upon to do battle. 

She had felt vaguely the coldness of her letters to Colombe, 
which perhaps was rather between the lines than to be read by 
the careless reader. And Colombe was ever careless. 

Now, in a passionate fit of repentance, she wrote fondly, com- 
forting her own sore heart by taking it to the sister who was 
ignorantly robbing her of joy. 

It was a long and ample letter. The lunch-bell rang before 
Phil had signed it. 

Just at the last her pen hovered in the air uncertainly. “Shall 
I, shall I not?” she asked herself. Then she decided in the 
affirmative. Piers, whom she was fond of, should have his chance, 
and her conscience need not torture her for it hereafter. 

“I suppose you never saw Piers Yanhomeigh, after all,” she 
wrote, “so you don’t know that he was very ill with malaria after 
he left you in Italy. He was here one day a month ago asking for 
news of you. Afterward he wrote to me that he should be in 
your neighborhood and would try to see you. But I suppose he 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


123 


did not go, for yesterday I met Rachel Pike, who is soon to become 
Rachel Armytage. She wanted to know when we were all coming 
back to the Mall, and if yon would be home in time for her wed- 
ding. She mentioned that Piers had had influenza. There is an 
epidemic of it in Dublin now. He had been very ill, but Rachel 
had heard that he was better. It was hard luck getting it on top 
of the malaria.” 

Phil dispatched her letter. It could not affect things very 
much one way or another now. She did not suppose for an instant 
that it would make Colombe break through the cordon of diffi- 
culties which was raised, she reported, whenever she talked of 
coming home. Phil could well believe that Colombe made a dif- 
ference in that quiet house, so that neither mother nor son would 
hear of her returning till she must. She (Phil) could never have 
made such a difference, or else would she be so soon forgotten ? 

However, forty-eight hours had not passed before Colombe 
arrived from the station in a cab laden high with parcels and boxes 
of all kinds. 

Phil, who was making a sober toilet for dinner, saw Colombe’s 
arrival from her window, and ran down-stairs to welcome her. Ho 
matter what tidings she brought, Colombe was Colombe still, de- 
lightful and delighting always. Why, the very sight of her, in 
the airy muslin which she had chosen to travel in, seemed to light 
up the gray twilight. Phil had been finding those summer even- 
ings by the sea an oppression of late. 

Colombe returned PhiPs embrace a trifle perfunctorily, asked 
after her mother, and permitted herself to be led up-stairs to PhiPs 
room, where her trunks followed her, and Phil stood, eager to be 
lady’s maid, as she had so often been to Colombe and Colombe to 
her. 

But instead of making an attempt to remove her hat Colombe, 
as soon as the maid had left the room, came and stood over Phil. 
Then Phil remembered seeing her sister’s portentous face. Here 
at last was the news she had been dreading to hear. With Colombe’s 
eyes on her would she be able to hide what she felt? Uncon- 


124 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


sciously Phil shivered, and her heart began to beat hard in her 
ears. She felt stifling, as though she were drowning and could 
not breathe. 

“I wouldn’t have done it to you,” Colombe was saying in pale 
reproach. 

What on earth did Colombe mean? What was she reproach- 
ing her about? 

“He may be ill and dying this minute,” said Colombe again. 
You know what a fatal epidemic of influenza it is. How those 
wretches of newspapers stabbed my heart in the train with their 
record of deaths ! And to think that I should not have known, 
that my heart should not have told me ! Why did you keep it 
from me, Phil?” 

“I thought you were enjoying yourself,” stammered Phil. 

“Enjoying myself! As though anything mattered if things 
were not well with Piers. You know I quarreled with him, Phil, 
but I cared for him all the time, though I tried to forget him. 
How if I lose him, after all !” 

Colombe’s face was really white and scared. She gripped 
Phil’s shoulder so hard that it hurt, but it passed unnoticed in 
the general topsy-turviness of things which made Phil almost 
giddy. 

“There is no question of losing him,” she said. “He is young 
and strong, though the malaria had pulled him down.” 

“He got it after I had sent him away in anger,” groaned 
Colombe. “Tell me, now, what Rachel said. That he was better 
— you are sure she said that? To think that Rachel Pike should 
have known all about and I have known nothing !” 

“There is the dressing-bell,” said Phil. “Take off your hat, 
Colombe, and bathe your eyes. Don’t be making yourself miser- 
able. There is nothing alarming in Piers’ condition.” 

“I’ve made up my mind to one thing,” said Colombe, allowing 
Phil to take off her hat for her. “I’ll accept Piers at once. I 
was terrified when I thought of all the years I’d been playing fast 
and loose with my happiness. I was so foolish that I almost de- 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


125 


served to lose it. Why did yon let me go away, Phil, for all those 
interminable weeks estranged from him? Yon were always the 
wise one. Why didn’t you advise me better?” 

What midsummer madness was this? Must Colombe be re- 
minded in so many words? For one giddy moment Phil almost 
felt that she deserved the reproaches in Colombe’s beautiful eyes. 

“How was I to know?” she asked uncertainly. “You thought 
— you have forgotten, Colombe, that you cared for some one else.” 

“Oh! You are thinking of that!” said Colombe contemp- 
tuously. “I was distracting myself because Piers and I were 
estranged. There was never really anything in it. You should 
have gone in my place, Phil, and have sent me back to Piers.” 

Phil walked away from her sister and busied herself in dis- 
posing of some of the many parcels. When she answered her it 
was in a low voice. She was shaken with anger, but Colombe must 
never know. She did not speak till she could control herself. 

“You would not let me go,” she said. “Your memory is short, 
Colombe. You have forgotten the scene you made in my bed- 
room at Castle J3’Kelly, the things you said >” 

“Hush! hush!” said Colombe. “I don’t want to remember. 
I am horribly ashamed. Now that Piers is ill I know my own 
heart. He is everything to me. Let me forget my folly, Phil.” 

Phil, turning her averted gaze, saw Colombe pressing her 
hands to her cheeks, with a look in the glass at the charming pic- 
ture she presented. Shamefacedness became Colombe, as did, in- 
deed, most other things. 

“Be sure you know your own heart this time,” said Phil, and 
her voice was dry. 

It came on Colombe like a dash of cold water. 

“You speak as if you didn’t believe me, Phil,” she said in a 
hurt voice. ‘You must know I have only cared for Piers always.” 

“Piers thought so.” 

“He thought so? He told you so? Tell me what he said, 
Phil. When did he say it ? The day he came to see you ? Tell 
me every word he said.” 


126 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER . 


“What matter ? He can tell it to you himself. I can’t remem- 
ber all he said to me.” 

“I think you’re unsympathetic, Phil. If you cared for any 
one I should have been sympathetic with you.” 

Phil went on shaking out a gown, just as she had done that 
morning at Castle O’Kelly when she had refused Colombe’s thanks 
for yielding up her happiness. But had she done it, after all? 
Phil thought she knew more of men than that. If he had cared 
he would have followed her. 

“Dear Phil,” said Colombe softly, coming behind her and kiss- 
ing one of the little bronze curls which lay so prettily on Phil’s 
white neck, “you despise me — I can see that. I have always been 
a disappointment to you. But Piers is going to make me different. 
Piers has always believed in me. Perhaps that is why I care for 
him so much.” 

Her voice broke in a hurt sob like a child’s. 

“Never mind, Colombe,” said Phil, turning to her. “You are 
very sweet as you are. Perhaps Piers could hardly improve upon 
you.” 

“And you will come with me to-morrow to see how he is?” 
said Colombe, smiling once more in her sister’s recovered tender- 
ness. “Do you remember the time we went to his house to tea, 
how pretty the room was? He would ruin himself in roses for 
me. To think of him, poor fellow, left to his old housekeeper 
when he was ill. I can hardly bear to think of it.” 

“People will talk, Colombe, if they know you went to see him ” 

“They won’t have time,” said Colombe, laughing, “because 
we shall be married so soon. Piers has no one but himself to con- 
sult. We will do our furnishing together. I’ll tell you what, 
Phil — we’ll take Aunt Fin with us. That will satisfy Dublin wit! 
its silly little notions of propriety.” 

“Very well,” said Phil. “Now tell me how you left our 
friends. It has been a happy summer on the whole ?” 

Something wistful in Phil’s face and voice reached Colombe 
even through her absorption in her own affairs. 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


127 


“You ought to have had it, by right, Phil. Mrs. Lismore 
always wanted you. She is so comfortable to stay with, so soft 
and motherly. IPs lovely to see a really loving mother. Ah, 
well, I was a selfish wretch. I wish you would go now. They 
want you, if it is not too late.” 

“Next summer,” said Phil, shaking her head. 

She did accompany Colombe on her visit to Piers next day, 
calling for Miss O'Kelly and whisking her off in a cab so that 
people might not say Colombe was forward if they came to know 
she had sought out Piers. 

Colombe wore her most subdued air that morning, though 
under it Phil thought she discovered a sparkle of exhilaration. 

Of course Colombe had moved Miss Fin to do what she wished. 
Equally of course she prevailed on Miss Brock, Piers' housekeeper, 
not to tell him who his visitors were. 

“Indeed, then,” said the good woman, “you're welcome as 
flowers in May, ladies, for there he lies on his sofy, fretting him- 
self to a bag o' bones because he wants to be out and the doctor 
says he mustn't. Yez'll cheer him up finely wid a sight o' your 
faces.” 

Colombe went in first to the dusty room where Piers was lying 
in fretful contemplation of the pipes and books, with which appar- 
ently Miss Brock had tried to solace him. Her face was like a 
rose. The dullest man would have seen the love in it, and Piers 
was not dull. 

He sprang up with an exclamation. Then he took Colombe’s 
two hands and drew her toward him. 

“In another half hour,” he said, “I should have been on my 
way to you if all the doctors on earth had tried to prevent me.” 

He held out a hand then to Phil and to Miss O'Kelly. 

“You are very good to come,” he said, “and to bring me 
Colombe.” 

“Colombe brought us,” said Phil. 

Colombe was sitting down now, ruefully contemplating Piers' 
wan cheeks and general leanness. 


128 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


“Do you think,” said Phil, “that the doctor would let us carry 
you off to Dalkey if we were to drive the whole way?” , 

“He only barred my rushing off to County Limerick. But even 
that he was willing I should do in a day or two.” 

“You dear, kind Phil!” breathed Colombe rapturously. 

“You can ask him now,” said the patient; “that is his knock.” 

A moment later the doctor was ushered into the room. He 
accepted Phil’s suggestion with bland approval. 

“He will be all right now,” he said. “I was only afraid of 
those little country places, damp beds, and all that sort of thing 
for him.” 

So Piers was carried off to Dalkey, where Mrs. Featherstone- 
haugh, having so many things to think about, was less disturbed 
than most mothers would have been by having a future son-in- 
law so suddenly thrust upon her. 

CHAPTER XY. 

COLOMBE MAKES A CONFESSION'. 

Life had seemed ever to strew roses, roses all the way for 
Colombe; and Phil marveled now at how smoothly everything 
went for this favorite of fortune. Every one smiled on her love- 
affair ; good wishes and beautiful gifts were shed upon her in pro- 
fusion every day the sun rose. Another girl might easily have let 
slip her happiness in all the years that Colombe had played with 
love. With Colombe, as soon as it was her royal will to take love 
seriously he stood waiting for her, clad in cloth of gold and with 
exquisite promises for all the years to come. 

It was such a marriage as delights the benevolent world, and if 
there was the snake of envy it hid under the flowers in Colombe’s 
Garden of Eden. 

Piers was handsome, healthy, clever, good, and well endowed 
with money. What could be more desirable ? Even Mrs. Feather- 
stonehaugh had little stirrings of pride at the congratulations that 
were showered upon her, though she and Colombe were as far 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


129 


estranged as it was possible for two people to be who would never 
dream of quarreling. 

Piers was a barrister by profession, but had hitherto done 
little, though people said he might go far if he would. Now he 
declared his intention to work, so that Colombe might be proud 
of him — to make up for all the years that Colombe had kept him 
idle and without an incentive. 

Happiness makes many people selfish. With Colombe it 
seemed different. She thought of every one in those days when she 
walked about in a quiet rapture with the eyes of a bride under her 
golden lashes. She wanted to make every one share her happiness. 
Was it likely that Phil could keep in her heart even a shadow of 
resentment against the sister whose charm she felt as a lover 
might ? 

Perhaps the last trace of it vanished before an exquisite kind- 
ness which Colombe chose for her wedding-gift from her groom 
rather than pearls or rubies or diamonds. This was the putting 
of Castle O’Kelly in a certain necessary order for its new in- 
mates. 

Mrs. Lloyd had accepted with delight the offer of Castle 
O’Kelly as a home for her ladies. The old ladies themselves were 
enchanted. Miss O’Kelly walked the earth with a new air. Yes, 
was she not to be a sort of head of the house, being so much the 
youngest of the band and a shrewd, managing woman by nature? 

Still the house was somewhat ruinous. A deal had to be done 
to make it habitable for twenty or thirty new inmates. And 
where was the money to come from? No one knew till Piers 
Yanhomeigh made the check, which was to have bought his wife 
a diamond tiara, payable to Miss Finola O’Kelly, with the under- 
standing that it should be expended by her on putting Castle 
O’Kelly in thorough repair. 

After this Colombe was more widely loved and praised than 
ever. Mrs. Lloyd came to see her, and took her in her arms with 
a giving thanks that was like a saint’s benediction. Father Tom 
Kirwan, who was unemotional, spoke of Colombe as one of the 


130 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER . 


angels of earth. The glorification of the bride-elect in these days 
would have made many a sister feel dowdy and overlooked. Not 
so Phil. She remembered her talks with her father in his last 
illness, and longed that he might have known how sweetly and 
graciously the child who had comforted him wonld develop into 
womanhood. 

The topic of the Lismores Phil had put away from her as a 
dangerous one. She knew that Colombe had heard from Mrs. 
Lismore at least once, and she supposed had written in reply, but 
if there had been a message for her Colombe had not mentioned it. 

Miss Peggy — Mrs. Ralph Featherstonehaugh, rather — had in- 
augurated this epidemic of wedding-clothes and wedding-doings 
which seemed to have become an institution in the hitherto un- 
eventful household. 

It was thought well that they should return to the Mall to 
make the preparations for Colombe’s wedding, and their stay at 
the seaside was shortened a little so that Colombe’s shopping could 
be performed more conveniently. Colombe was going to marry 
a rich man and was to have many garments. And only half will- 
ingly she was obliged to leave them to other hands, since her lover 
claimed so much of her, and the time for preparation was short. 

The grim old house by the sluggish canal grew unrecognizably 
busy in those days. 

Milliners’ boxes and all sorts of parcels were constantly arriv- 
ing. Patterns overflowed from Colombe’s own room all over the 
house, invading even her mother’s tidy writing-table. When they 
looked up gayly out of her folded and docketed reports, Mrs. 
Featherstonehaugh put them away with a smile. She was pleased 
with Colombe since that benefaction to Castle O’Kelly. It showed 
something of herself in the child which hitherto she had not sus- 
pected. 

It was golden October weather, such autumn weather as one 
often gets in Ireland, warm as summer, but with something pa- 
thetic in its beauty. The trees by the canal-side had carpeted all 
the way with a drift of warm pale-gold leaves. 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


131 


“I hope it will be like this in Paris,” said Colombe, looking 
ont from the window of Phil’s room at the dying reflection of a 
tender sunset on the green water. Colombe was to spend her 
honeymoon in Paris, and the time before her wedding-day was 
dwindling now. 

“You are sure to have queen’s weather, you fortunate girl!” 
replied Phil. “Everything goes well with you.” 

“When we come back,” said Colombe, “we shall have some 
gay times. You are so pretty, Phil. You ought to be seen and ad- 
mired. Mamma has not done her duty by you. I’ll tell you 
what I should have liked, Phil, that we should have been married 
the same day.” 

“You must find me the swain first,” said Phil, with a smile 
which was rather forced. 

“There are plenty of swains, only you haven’t seen them to 
pick out the true one. I think you’re cold-hearted, Phil.” 

Phil shook her head. 

“You have taken all the lovers, Colombe,” she said, with an 
attempt at gayety. 

“It was only that I willed to attract them and you didn’t.” 

“By the way,” said Phil, finding something to be busy about, 
“have you heard from Mrs. Lismore again ? And how are they ?” 

Colombe turned red. 

“Do you know, Phil,” she said, “I’m such a wretch. I haven’t 
written. I’ve been so busy.” 

“Yes, of course, you’ve been very busy.” 

Colombe’s embarrassment told Phil the truth. In these days 
the thought of her passing fancy for Ross Lismore was some- 
thing not to be borne. When women have found the true love they 
are bitterly ashamed of having gone after false fires. 

“Still, they were very good to you, Colombe,” she went on. 
“You ought to write.” 

“I shall, dear Phil. I shall write to-morrow.” 

It was the last day of the perfectly happy feeling between the 
sisters, 


132 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


The next day brought Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Featherstonehaugh 
to stay for the wedding. Aunt Fin had refused to come till the 
night before. She was deep in plans and estimates every day with 
Mrs. Lloyd. The move to Castle O’Kelly could hardly be made 
before the spring. But Fin solaced her impatience with the 
thought that they should take possession of Castle O’Kelly at its 
loveliest — Castle O’Kelly with a stout roof against next winter 
and a general renovation out of the cost of Colombe’s tiara. 

Peggy Featherstonehaugh, the bride of a month, had already 
prettily assumed the placid air of a matron of many years’ stand- 
ing. Quite unconsciously she betrayed a feeling which she would 
rather have died than owned to, and that was a profound, if gentle, 
contempt for the unmarried state. 

"What a blessing she has you to go on with, Colombe !” said 
Phil, before Aunt Peggy was half an hour in the house. 

Presently Aunt Peggy joined the two girls in that little sitting- 
room of theirs which had always been Colombe’s altar of vanities, 
and which now fairly overflowed with signs and tokens of what 
was coming. 

She was immensely excited over Colombe and insatiable for 
details about everything. 

"She is younger than any of us,” thought Phil, looking at her 
aunt’s delicate, faded prettiness, which was most becomingly clad. 

Then Aunt Peggy made a speech which was like a bomb-shell 
into the peace of the sisters. 

"I was so surprised, Colombe,” she said, "when I heard it, for 
you certainly did tell us at Knockarea that it was Phil. That was 
very naughty of you.” 

Colombe turned red and pale. 

"What did I say?” she stammered. "I have forgotten.” 

"I can’t tell you exactly what you did say, but you gave us 
the impression that Mr. Vanhomeigh was Phil’s lover. Mrs. Lis- 
more said to me afterward that of course it explained why Phil 
would not come to them. I felt at the moment that I was say- 
ing something stupid under the circumstances, as an unmarried 



“ The hand which held the scissors shook so much that Colomhe had to desist. 
After a few seconds Phil icent out of the room.” P. 135. 










































































































































HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


135 


woman might, in talking to you of a young gentleman I supposed 
to be an aspirant to your hand. But of course I was mistaken in 
thinking it was young Lismore, after all.” 

“Yes, you were quite mistaken, of course,” said Colombe. “I 
oughtn’t to have said it. I suppose it was an awkward moment !” 

The hand which held the scissors — Colombe was cutting at 
something or other — shook so much that Colombe had to desist. 
She gave a look of entreaty at Phil. Phil was not looking at 
her. After a few seconds of silence Phil went out of the room. 

A little while afterward Colombe knocked at Phil’s door. 
There was no answer and Colombe went in. Phil was standing by 
the dressing-table gazing rigidly before her. She turned a face 
like stone to Colombe’s contrite gaze. 

“What is the matter, Phil ?” said Colombe, with a cry of alarm. 
“I know it wasn’t straight of me. It was horribly mean and lying, 
but I didn’t think it could matter. Ross Lismore was looking 
at me, and I fancied I cared for him and said the first thing that 
came into my head.” 

Phil said nothing. She had looked away from Colombe again 
and was drumming mechanically with her fingers upon the toilet- 
glass. Something in the rigidity of her look frightened Colombe. 

“Phil, Phil!” she cried, “speak to me! You didn’t care so 
much as all that?” 

“Let me alone,” said Phil. “You have everything you want.” 

Colombe’s eyes filled with tears. She made a snatch at Phil’s 
hand, but Phil withdrew it from her. 

“You never made anything hard for me before, Phil,” she said. 

“We all made everything too easy for you,” said Phil bitterly, 
“and this is the result.” 

Colombe’s pretty color turned to two deep red spots in her 
soft cheeks. It was a bad quarter of an hour for one whom all 
the world had been praising. 

“I know,” she said humbly, “I told a lie about it. I am 
bitterly sorry, Phil. I don’t know how I came to do such a 
thing.” 


136 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


“I was thinking of you with love. I had given up my happi- 
ness because you snatched at it. You are like a child who seizes 
a precious thing and flings it in the dust.” 

A sudden horrified enlightenment broke over Colombe’s face. 

“Phil, Phil !” she cried, wringing her hands, “you don’t mean 
that you cared like that ? I thought it was only that you were so 
proud that you could not endure it to be said that a man you did 
not love was your lover. Is it possible, Phil, that you cared in the 
other way?” 

“I was beginning to care,” said Phil in a dull voice. “I think 
he was beginning to care, too. What could he have thought of 
me? I had promised to go, and then I went away without a 
word. What a poor creature he must have thought me, with an- 
other lover out of sight !” 

“What I have done can be undone, Phil.” 

“You can not undo it. He has made no sign. You killed the 
beginning of his feelings for me, and neither you nor I can make 
it live again.” 

“Why did you do it?” asked Colombe, flaming into sudden 
fury. “Do you think I’d have let you do it if I’d known ? I did 
know you wanted to go to Knockarea, but I fancied that it was 
only that they were pleasant people. If I had had the faintest 
inkling of such a thing, do you think I’d have stolen your lover? 
Upon my word, Phil, if I’m the poor creature you think me, I 
have you to blame for it.” 

“You have me to blame for it!” Phil repeated incredulously. 

“It is true that you always gave in to me. Who fostered my 
vanity and selfishness but you ? I wonder that I have a shred of 
good left to begin again upon.” 

Phil began to laugh unhappily. 

“Upon my word, Colombe, you are a most unexpected person,” 
she said. “What is Piers going to do with you?” 

“Piers is going to tell me the truth. In fact, he has always 
told me the truth, though he loves me. I am going to tell him 
now that I told a horrible, mean lie.” 



( ( 


It teas icith lowered eyelids and trembling lips that Colombe spoked' 


P. 


1 

lo / 




























. 









































































HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


187 


“In order to be comforted, to be told that everything yon do 
becomes you.” 

Colombe looked at her in wonder. 

“Don't sneer, Phil,” she said slowly. “I hardly know you 
when you sneer. And you wrong Piers. Piers doesn't treat me 
like a child.” 

“I know,” said Phil. “You mustn't mind all I say now, 

Colombe.” 

Colombe's face twitched all over at the renewed gentleness in 
Phil's voice. 

“Never mind,” she said. “I won't ask you to forgive me 
now.” 

It was only after Colombe had gone out that Phil remem- 
bered how she had not asked her to make her confession to Piers 
without bringing in her name. It was an added suffering that 
she had given away her secret to Colombe — that she must trust her 
to keep it for her. 

-But now she let things be. She could not reopen the subject 
with Colombe. She took refuge in a greater silence than before ; 
but perhaps people had grown used to Phil's having lost her old 
vivacity, for no one seemed to notice it- but Father Tom, and it 
was only when Phil was not looking that he sent her those kind 
and faithful glances, full of a fatherly concern. 

CHAPTER XYI. 
colombe's triumph. 

Phil might have been easy in her mind if she had heard 
Colombe's confession to her lover. She might also have repented 
of her suspicion, unlike wholesome-natured Phil, that Colombe 
confessed to Piers for the pleasure of being absolved by him. 

It was with lowered eyelids and trembling lips, and for once 
with no thought of how pretty she looked, that Colombe spoke. 
Other things she would not have minded confessing; but a lie! 
It was a horrid sort of transgression. 


138 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


“Don’t kiss me, Piers,” she said. “Not till I have told yon 
something — something I did, and, what is worse, had forgotten.” 

“What, sweetheart?” 

“I told a lie. Piers.” 

“That was unlike you, Colombe.” 

“You think too well of me,” she said, lifting eyes, innocent as 
a child’s, to his. “And yet you know me better than any one else. 
I haven’t told lies: perhaps it was because I had no need to. 
Anyhow, I told this one easily and then forgot all about it.” 

“What made you remember it?” 

“Because of its results to some one else. I did not foresee the 
results, but it did harm. Do you know, Piers, I had a wild 
thought of begging that person never to let you know I had told 
that lie? I was terrified at the thought of your knowing. Then 
I made up my mind to tell you myself.” 

“That was the right thing, Colombe. You must never be 
afraid of me, child. I should have little enough right to judge 
you harshly.” 

“I know, Piers. But then a lie ! Besides, it involved another 
disloyalty, for I represented you as some one else’s lover.” 

“That was a lie, indeed, Colombe.” 

“And I wanted it to be believed, because I thought at the 
moment I cared for some one else.” 

“What undeceived you?” 

“The news of your illness. I had grown so used to your being 
always there. Piers, like the air and the sun which we forget to 
thank God for. When I imagined a world without you — 0 
Piers !” Colombe’s face was eloquent. 

Piers stooped and kissed her with an added tenderness. 

“Is that all now, Colombe?” 

“That is all, Piers.” 

“Ah, well, you will never be afraid to tell me the whole truth.” 

“Not so much afraid that I shall not tell you. I was terribly 
afraid to tell you this. But, Piers, that is not all. I told you 
my saying that had affected some one else. What am I 
to do?” 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


141 


“If your confessing it will undo the mischief, Colombe, I think 
you wall have to confess it.” 

“I thought of that, Piers. I don’t mind the humiliation for 
myself. It is only that I am so soon to be yours. I felt as if 
I ought not to include you in the humiliation.” 

“And we can not be separated. My dearest, I shall not mind 
bearing your blame, such as it is. It is happy that you have not 
to bear mine.” 

As soon as Piers had left that night, with the farewell that 
grew harder to say now that there were so few more of them left 
to say, Colombe betook herself to her room to write her letter. 

“I hate to do it,” she said aloud. “I remember yesterday how 
I thought to get out of it by persuading myself that as soon as 
he heard it was I was to marry Piers he would come. But whether 
he comes or not, and he must come, I’ve got to swallow this pill.” 

A memory of her childhood, how she had been taught to breathe 
a pious ejaculation before swallowing a nauseous medicine, sud- 
denly made her smile more ruefully. She shut her eyes while she 
smiled and said the child’s prayer over. Then she began to write : 

“Dear Mr. Lismore: 

“When I was at Knockarea I said one day that Mr. 

Piers Yanhomeigh was my sister’s lover. It was not true, 

and I am very sorry for saying it. He was always my 

lover — never any one else’s, and we are to be married on the 

twentieth. You will receive a formal invitation to my wedding in 
a day or two. I hope you will come, and dear Mrs. Lismore, 
whom I love, though I am so bad about writing to her. 

“Ever your sincere friend, 

“C. de Ste. Croix.” 

“Let him make what he will of that,” she said, signing it with 
a flourish. “I think he will come. I am sure of it. He could 
not have been so insensible to me if he had not been in love with 
some one else first.” 

She ran down-stairs with her letter and found Bridget the cook 
bolting up for the night. 


1 42 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


“Wait for me a minute,” she said. “I want to post a letter.” 

“Let me do it, miss,” said Bridget. 

But Colombe held her letter zealously and carried it herself to 
the pillar which was close at hand. 

“Writin’ to her sweetheart, she was,” said Bridget, describing 
the thing to Margaret the parlor maid afterward. “I know by the 
way she held it agin her heart. An* she only parted wid him an 
hour ago. It makes me feel that romantic that I could take 
Brennan this minit, though I’ve been puttin’ him off these thirty 
years till he was too ould for the canal-boat business. I never 
could bear to live on the water.” 

“Maybe she wasn’t writin’ to Mr. Piers at all,” suggested 
Margaret. “Sure what would she have to say to him?” 

“There spoke the single girl,” said Bridget. “Not but what 
I’m single meself, but I needn’t be if I liked, an’ wouldn’t be if 
Brennan wasn’t that unfortunate that he always presses me whin 
I’m annoyed about somethin’. Lovers has always things to say 
to aich other, let alone that I took a stitch in my side as I was 
passin’ the drawin’-room door this evenin’, an’ I heard Miss 
Colombe beggin’ his pardon for somethin’.” 

“It’s what I’d do to no mankind,” said celibate Margaret, <f but 
expect him to be plasin’ me from momin’ till night. Let alone 
that Miss Colombe, though she wouldn’t think of you like Miss 
Phil, is that pleasant when you want a hat to go out in. ’Tis 
beggin’ her pardon he ought to be.” 

Happily unconscious of how much knowledge the kitchen pos- 
sessed of her affairs, Colombe went upstairs with a heart lightened 
of its burden. With Colombe, to desire a thing and to set about 
possessing it was to have it. 

Under the influence of the feeling she ran up and knocked at 
Phil’s door, and was bade to enter. 

Phil was brushing her hair, standing in the middle of the 
room. She had not forgotten the old days when she and Colombe 
shared a room and a glass sufficiently to brush her hair before the 
glass “like a Christian,” as Colombe put it. 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


143 


“I couldn’t go to bed without making up,” said Colombe. 

“Let us make up,” said Phil, “and not talk about it, Colombe. 
I never want it talked of again. After all, you could not know; 
and it is all over.” 

“It is not all over, Phil. I have been thinking. I know now 
that he was in love with you, or else why should he not have 
been in love with me?” 

“It seems conclusive,” said Phil. 

Colombe looked at her doubtfully. 

‘‘You think I’m vain,” she said in some wonder. “However, 
I didn’t come to talk about myself. Only I wanted to assure you, 
Phil darling, that I am sure he cares for you. He was so disap- 
pointed when you did not come. I remember now that I felt quite 
vexed with him because he was so disappointed. I had always been 
so used to people being satisfied with me.” 

“Don’t let us talk about it, Colombe.” 

“But I am talking about myself, not about you, Phil. I first 
began to discover that I had only been idealizing him when I 
found out — I could hardly believe it at first — that he didn’t care 
for me — not in that way, I mean. He was always delighted with 
me, just as he used to be at Castle O’Kelly; but I know the other 
feeling too well — so many people have been in love with me, to say 
nothing of Piers — not to recognize its absence. I was very stupid 
not to know it was you, for I remember, before I said that, that 
he used to like to hear me talk of you ; and you will hardly believe 
it, Phil, but once when I had been talking of you and went on to 
talk of myself, I found that he hadn’t heard a word of the latter 
part of the conversation. I thought it very stupid, and imme- 
diately I began to compare him with Piers.” 

“ To his disadvantage, of course ?” said Phil, with a laugh. 

“That was how I felt then, Phil. I was a selfish wretch then. 
Of course I see it all now. But things will come right, Phil, I 
am sure of it. And I couldn’t sleep till I had asked you to kiss 
me and forgive me.” 

“I made too much of it,” said generous Phil. “You never 


144 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


could mean to hurt any one, Colombe. And you must forget 
everything I have told you. I am not the sort of girl to go wear- 
ing the willow through life, and I don’t believe in the permanence 
of unreciprocated attachments.” 

Phil laughed at herself, as she had done many a time, though 
tears smarted in her eyes. 

“I dare say there is a Piers waiting for me somewhere, or, 
if not a Piers exactly — that is not likely, Colombe, is it? — at 
least some one who will be as delightful to me as Piers is to you, 
and to whom I shall be about half as delightful as you are to 
Piers.” 

“You are as pretty as I am,” said Colombe judicially, “only 
you don’t know how to put on your clothes so well. And of course 
you are a thousand times better and cleverer than I could ever 
be.” 

“But goodness and cleverness don’t count,” said Phil, laughing 
again. 

“Ah, you have an advantage over me,” said Colombe, with a 
serious shake of her head. “You are papa’s daughter. He gave 
you his qualities. And I — I know nothing about my father. Do 
you suppose he gave me his qualities, Phil?” 

The mention of her father was Phil’s final subjugation. 

“Papa loved and believed in you, Colombe, and he taught me 
to do the same. And your qualities are lovely, no matter who 
gave them to you.” 

“I could not have been happy, even with Piers, if you had gone 
on thinking ill of me,” said Colombe. 

Her face, wet with Phil’s tears as they kissed each other, wore 
the old, triumphant, all-conquering expression. 

Phil had been used to say that Colombe was not happy if even 
the crossing-sweeper did not bless her pretty face as she went by 
him. 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


145 


CHAPTER XVII. 

COLOMBE IS BENEVOLENT. 

Fortune always favored Colombe; for a couple of days later, 
as she was coming home and had just taken the turn into the Mall 
— she had stopped an instant at the bridge to speak to Katty 
O’Brien, the old apple-woman — some one overtook her and called 
her by name. 

She turned, and any one who knew that she was to marry 
Piers Vanhomeigh in a few days might have wondered at seeing 
the light that broke over her face. But Piers had been sitting 
as patiently as he might for the last half hour in the drawing- 
room, which was given up of afternoons to the lovers, awaiting his 
tardy lady. Colombe had been paying her last visit to Brown & 
Thomas’ for the fitting on of her wedding-dress, and for once 
had forbidden Piers to attend her. She would not for worlds 
have had him run counter to the old superstition that it is 
unlucky for the bride to show herself in wedding-garments before 
the auspicious occasion. And if Piers had been waiting outside 
among the ladies’ papers and the model costumes, Colombe could 
scarce have forborne to call him in to see the ravishing spectacle 
she made. 

She held out a frank hand to the newcomer. 

"Welcome, Mr. Lismore !” she said. "It is awfully nice of you 
to come so quickly.” 

"You did not suppose I should delay,” he replied, as though 
there were a perfect understanding between them. 

"And you are going to stay for my day ?” 

"That depends.” 

Her eyes questioned him. 

"There are some questions a man ought to ask for himself and 
a woman to answer for herself,” he went on. "Still, a happy for- 
tune has put you in my way. Tell me how much or how little 
your letter meant.” 

Colombe’s eyes began to dance. 


146 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


"We are within half a dozen yards of my own door-step/’ she 
said, "and some one may come out any moment and interrupt us. 
In fact, some one has been waiting for me for some considerable 
time, and I don’t know how much longer four walls will hold him. 
Suppose we go over there and talk it out.” 

She indicated the further side of the canal, where a seat stood 
amid the golden wreckage of the leaves. 

They went quickly over the bridge, somewhat to the scandal of 
Katty O’Brien, who had looked on at Colombe’ s love-affairs many 
years and had thought it time they terminated in happy marriage. 

The seat was near the arch of the bridge, close to the water’s 
edge, and quite secluded, though Colombe could keep a sympathetic 
observation on the house where Piers by this time was chafing. 

"You’ve forgiven me for that story ?” she asked when they were 
seated. 

"I wonder why you told it,” he said. 

"Ah, that you are never to know,” said Colombe, turning a 
little red. 

"You did all that was possible in telling me,” he went on. 
"I think it was very brave of you. I don’t mind confessing now 
that it was a horrible facer when you said it. Probably I imagined 
much more than you intended. But tell me, now, Miss Colombe — 
you are always my friend, aren’t you? — how much or how little 
did you mean by that friendly summons ? ” 

"There is my poor Piers,” said Colombe irrelevantly. "He’s 
beginning to think now that I have wandered under one of those 
horrible electric tramcars. As though I should ever do such a 
thing !” 

"I will let you go to him in an instant; only I want you to 
answer my question.” 

"There isn’t any hurry. About how much I meant, wasn’t it ? 
I think you had better ask some one else.” 

"Ah,” — a gleam of delight broke over his brown face — “you 
meant that? You are too good to me, Miss Colombe. I don’t 
deserve it. I was an unready fellow and faint-hearted, or I should 



Welcome, Mr. Lismore ! * she said. ‘ It is awfully nice of you to come so quickly. ' ” P. 145. 











* 












































































































































«• 


♦ 























HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


149 


have set myself against the other man whom I believed to be her 
lover.” 

“Against Piers !” said Colombe in amazement. “Yon wouldn’t 
have had a chance.” 

Lismore smiled under his mustache. 

“I think I should all the same,” he said. 

“Then you are frightfully conceited. Ah, there goes Piers 
again. I fancy he’s frowning, though I can’t be sure at this dis- 
tance. If he takes to biting his nails I shall have to go. It shows 
the last extremity of distress with Piers.” 

“I shall let you go in an instant — that is, if you will take me 
home with you. Why wouldn’t your sister come to Knockarea 
after she had promised me to come?” 

“That is just the one thing you must never ask,” said Colombe, 
“for Phil will never tell you, and neither shall I.” 

“It was inexplicable, for she had seemed to care to listen when 
I told her about my home. I should not have dared to prose to 
you as I did to her.” 

“I know,” said Colombe, with a slight resentment, “you never 
talked to me about anything serious.” 

“There is only one woman to whom a man will talk about his 
home and childhood and such things, and never fear that she will 
think him dull.” 

“She does, though, sometimes. I’ve been talked to about ever 
so many people’s homes and childhoods. I never found any of 
them interesting but Piers’. He seems to have had a different 
kind of home and childhood.” 

“I never bored you that way,” he said, laughing. 

“Ho, indeed, you didn’t.” A flash of audacity came into 
Colombe’s blue eyes. “I wonder who could have refrained.” 

“It was dull of me,” he confessed. “I couldn’t have helped it, 
only, see — I had met the one woman.” 

“We had better be seeking her,” said Colombe. “I am getting 
uneasy about Piers. He hasn’t come back, and the last time he 
went by he was just going to bite his nails,” 


150 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER . 


“Ah, well, he can afford to wait a bit. He’s a lucky fellow, 
Miss Colombe !” 

“We’d better hurry back, or Katty O’Brien won’t be able to 
keep her counsel. She knows I am here all the time, and she 
has assumed a watch over my conduct ever since I was three years 

old.” 

“Katty O’Brien?” 

“The apple- woman at the bridge. Only for her, she says, I’d 
have been drowned twenty times over before I was five years old. 
We were quite young women before she would let us leave the house 
unaccompanied. I assure you we have had to go out the back way 
to avoid being driven back by her. Even now she can’t bear us 
to walk the canal side of the road. I expect she has really been 
too busy watching me now to betray me to Piers.” 

The rosy-cheeked old apple-woman seemed to be gazing into 
distance as they passed her by, but her brow cleared as she beheld 
presently the meeting with Mr. Vanhomeigh and the cordial greet- 
ing between the two men. 

“I had to talk to Mr. Lismore about something, Piers,” 
Colombe explained, “and so we’ve been sitting on that seat over 
there for the last half hour watching you walking up and down.” 

<r Don’t you pity me, Lismore ?” said Piers, laughing boyishly. 
“I fret and fume all the afternoon while this young lady tries on 
new frocks, and at the end of it she can watch my sufferings in this 
cold-blooded way!” 

“I think you are the least-to-be-pitied man in the world,” said 
Lismore, with a conviction that made Colombe give him a very 
sweet smile. 

They were walking back to the house together by this time. 

“Is there any one in, Piers ?” asked Colombe. 

“Only Phil.” 

“Ah, Phil will do very well to talk to Mr. Lismore while you 
finish your smoke. IIow many cigarettes did you light and fling 
away while you waited, Piers ? Every few seconds I saw the spurt 
of a match in the blue twilight across the canal,” 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


151 


"I couldn’t have believed it of you, Colombe — could you, Lis- 
more ?” 

“I’ve seen it,” said Lismore, laughing light-heartedly. 

He and Colombe went in together while Piers waited outside. 
In a few seconds he was joined by the young lady, who slipped her 
arm through his affectionately. 

"What is it about Lismore, Colombe?” he asked. 

"I think he’s on the way to be as happy a man as you are. 
Piers.” 

"Ah, is that it?” 

A light was breaking over Piers’ mind about many things that 
had somewhat puzzled him. 

"I thought Phil was not the same lately,” he said. 

"You noticed it ? Ho you know what she contemplated, Piers ? 
I’ve only just found out. She was going to Castle O’Kelly to 
help to look after the old ladies. There would not be a soul within 
miles of her of her own class who was not old. Aunt Peggy would 
have been the youngest. Think of her among those old, old souls !” 

"Horrible!” said Piers. 

"It wouldn’t have been horrible. Phil would have made a queer 
kind of happiness for herself. Hot unnatural, but only super- 
natural. She offered herself to that beautiful creature, Mrs. Lloyd, 
to do anything she would or go anywhere. Mrs. Lloyd tried to 
dissuade her, but finally assented to her going to Castle O’Kelly. 
She thought it would be a hard probation with all those old ladies, 
and that Phil would find it too hard. I think she under-rated Phil’s 
constancy. Afterward, if Phil persevered, she promised to keep 
her near herself. Phil worships Mrs. Lloyd. I can understand the 
feeling. Piers, though you would hardly believe it.” 

"Your mission is to look after me, child, and Phil’s is, I sup- 
pose, to look after Lismore.” 

"And Katty O’Brien’s to look after me. See, Piers, she is 
smiling broadly at us. I think she had a dreadful suspicion that 
I was deceiving you when she saw me with Mr. Lismore. Katty 
was always ready to believe the worst of me.” 


152 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


“You are like the naughty child that is always the best-be- 
loved.” 

“I wonder how Phil is getting on. I told her we should want 
tea in three-quarters of an hour. Was that long enough. Piers ?” 

“It depends on what it was for, my sweetheart.” 

“Oh, for explanations and things. Anyhow, it is half an hour 
later than usual, and I am very hungry.” 

“It is as long as you could be expected to wait, then.” 

“I am so fond of Phil I would do anything for her. How 
lucky Uncle Ealph and Aunt Peggy were out and mamma at 
the hospital !” 

“Yes, Lismore was rather in luck.” 

“Especially in meeting me. I made things easy for him.” 

“You weren’t long about it.” 

“I just asked Phil in the most casual way to go in and talk 
to some one in the drawing-room, as you were waiting for me 
outside. She came like a lamb, poor dear, without even asking 
who it was. I never could have believed that I should take such 
interest in any one else’s love-affairs.” 

CHAPTEK XVIII. 
phil’s reward. 

Phil came dowm in the dark, hardly wondering who it was 
she might be called upon to entertain. Colombe had a way of 
handing over her responsibilities when they irked her at all, so 
that her sudden summons had not been a matter of surprise to 
her sister. 

Some one stood tall and dark against the light from the dim 
window. Margaret had not yet come in to light the lamps, and 
it was blind man’s holiday in the room, where spurts of flame 
from the little clear fire only made darkness visible. 

The some one turned as Phil came in, and held out his hand. 
Then she saw who it was. and her heart gave a great leap of 
gladness. 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


15 ^ 


“You have come to the wedding?” she asked, with a gayety 
that surprised herself. 

“Preceding my mother by a day or two,” he said. “We could 
not deny ourselves the pleasure of seeing so charming a bride 
as your sister will make. We are at the Shelbonne — at least 
I am, and my mother will be there on Thursday.” 

He was still holding her hand, and Phil made no effort to 
withdraw it, though she had an uneasy sense that Margaret 
might come in at any moment to light the lamps. 

She shook her head with a demureness which Lismore had 
always thought bewitching in her; it had a certain delightful 
incongruity with her frankness of look and manner. 

“I wonder if Colombe would think that any man ought to 
find it a pleasure to see her a bride.” 

“She seems very happy with the man of her choice,” he said. 

“There is nobody to compare with Piers, of course,” she re- 
plied. “Still, I hardly think that Colombe will give up her sub- 
jugating habit.” 

“She is irresistible. No man could stand out against her 
unless — there were some one else.” 

There was a second’s pause, and Phil made a little effort to 
withdraw her hand from his. But he only held it the more 
firmly and drew her a little nearer by it. 

“I was subjected to Miss Colombe’s fascinations all the sum- 
mer,” he said. “I should have been a most unwilling witness 
of her marriage ceremony — indeed, I should now be sitting with 
my head in my hands at Ivnockarea only for one thing.” 

“And that?” in a low voice. 

“There is some one else. There has been some one else since 
I opened my eyes after I got my head broken in the wreck. 
Ah” — with a remorseful air — “I was going to call it a lucky 
wreck, forgetting those poor lads of mine who were lost.” 

“Colombe told me how you had taken care of those they left.” 

“Of course; that had to be done. But tell me, now. We 
touched almost perfect friendship during that time when you 


154 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


nursed me back to life and health. Why has our friendship 
suffered a lapse during all one summer?” 

“I thought you had forgotten.” 

“And I thought you had broken faith. Later on I thought 
I knew why. Your sister says that I must never ask why you 
broke your promise to come to Ivnockarea.” 

“You must never ask that.” 

“Not even — presently? If you knew how horribly you dis- 
appointed me. I had had a vision of you where my fathers have 
been before me. Even — Colombe could not make up for the loss 
of that.” 

“Why didn’t you write and tell me ?” She lifted fervent eyes 
to his. “If I had been sure you cared for me, nothing, nothing 
would have induced me to disappoint you.” 

“ * If he loves me, this believe, 

I will die ere he shall grieve,’ ” 

he paraphrased happily. 

“I had no mind to hurry my joy, Phil,” he said. “Our 
friendship was exquisite enough. I thought 1 had a whole sum- 
mer for my courtship. Now we are on the edge of winter, and 
I can wait no longer. Winter lights the hearth-fire, Phil.” 

“I thought it would never be lighted for me,” she said, with 
a half-sad air, as one who listens to a sad strain in the midst of 
happiness. 

“It is lighted now,” he said, “and the hearth swept and gar- 
nished. If you would not take possession of the house no other 
woman ever should.” 

“You would have been so faithful?” she said in wonder. 

“No woman attracted me — in that way — before you came, 
though I am far from being a woman-hater. If we had been 
separated, the place would have remained empty waiting your 
presence.” 

“I too,” she said — “I have always wondered at the fancies of 
other girls. I suppose I must have been waiting.” 


HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER . 


155 


“Ours must be a love-story without a hero,” he said half rue- 
fully. “How could I ever have distrusted those frank eyes? 
I should have believed them though all the world said no.” 

“Ah, well,” she said, with a deep sigh of content, “we have 
yet a great many years, God willing, in which to make up.” 

“God willing,” he repeated, looking gravely down with all 
the joy of his youth in his eyes on the dark and comely face 
against his breast. 

“Perhaps this would not have been so wonderful,” she said, 
half to herself, “if there had not been the loss and the loneliness 
that went before.” 

EPILOGUE. 

The new inmates of Castle OiKelly had been two months in 
possession when Phil Lismore, home from her leisurely honey- 
moon and on her way to her husband’s shooting-lodge, paid her 
Aunt Fin a much-desired visit of a few days. 

She and her husband, who showed no symptom of ceasing to 
be the bridegroom, walked over from the cross-roads, leaving 
Tim Healy, driven by the new young man-of-all-work, to carry 
the luggage. It was still a joy to them to walk, hand in hand, a 
happy pair of lovers, along the roads scented with airs of April, 
where every roadside bush held its pair of feathered sweethearts. 

“Herself,” said Bodkin, coming out to welcome “Miss Phil,” 
as he will always call her, “is above, givin’ the finishin’ touches 
to your room. She won’t expect yez till she hears Tim’s trot, 
an’ that’ll be maybe in an hour or two, for he’ll no more be druv 
be the new bye thin he would be by herself. He’s more impident 
nor ever be rayson of the pettin’ he does be gittin’ from th’ ould 
ladies. You’d think apples an’ sugar was the natcheral food for 
a baste, to see how they stuffs him. The new bye thought he’d 
git the betther of Tim, but ’tis broken-hearted, aye, an’ broken- 
winded he’ll be before he does it. I’d back Tim agin anny bye. 
Aye, faith, he’d be a bigger divil nor anny of them.” 

“You’re quite well yourself, Bodkin, I hope.” 


156 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


“Grand, ma’am, an’ plinty to do. There’s a great stir in the 
place entirely, an’ a new cook an’ a couple o’ maids under her. 
I find th’ ould ladies rale pleasant to sarve. Bein’ the rale ould 
quality they are, they’re aisy plaised, an’ that thankful for every 
hand’s turn you do for thim ! ’Twas a great riddance o’ bad 
rubbish to git shut of that Bessie woman. When she wasn’t too 
friendly ’twas quarrelin’ she was.” 

“Ah, she’s housekeeping for Mrs. Ralph Featherstonehaugh, 
I hear.” 

“For Miss Peggy. She is ; an’ betther there nor here, says I.” 

The old place was looking its best. The persiennes had been 
newly painted, the windows fresh glazed in the gaps where 
brown paper had done duty for many a year. The grassy space 
in front, which used to be disgracefully overgrown, now presented 
a silken-smooth aspect. In the little field below a couple of 
black Kerries were placidly chewing the cud. The old tangle 
of pears and plums in blossom looked over the garden wall. 
Phil was glad things had not been tidied out of all recognition. 

A moment later and she was gathered to Miss O’Kelly’s heart. 

“Welcome to the house which you and your sister have made 
a kindly home for the homeless,” she said. 

“He is the one to be thanked,” said Phil, indicating her hus- 
band. 

“God bless him !” said Miss O’Kelly, but said no more, rightly 
conjecturing that her new nephew-in-law would dread praise 
and thanks more than anything. 

“The house is just the same,” Miss O’Kelly went on. “We 
have changed it as little as possible. We all felt that too much 
completeness would savor of an institution, and that we dread 
above all things. Then we have all our little treasures; and the 
spaciousness of Castle O’Kelly permits us to have a room apiece. 
We encroached as little as possible on each other in Dublin. 
Still, it was a trial that we could not have our solitude.” 

The April wind, fresh from roaming over sea and mountain, 
blew sweetly through the open windows, lifting the curtains of 



She ' ushered them both into the presence of Father Kirwan and the parson, Mr. Thornhill.” p, uo. 





















































































. 























HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. 


159 


apple-blossom chintz, tenderly faded, which Phil remembered to 
have seen in Dublin. 

“We are all out of doors,” said Miss O’Kelly, “walking or 
gardening, or doing what we will, except a few of us who are 
in the work-room, doing something which is a close secret.” 

She opened the door of the long drawing-room and ushered 
them both into the presence of Father Kirwan and the parson, 
Mr. Thornhill. 

“See,” she said to Lismore, “I have scoured the country for 
male society for you. They will tell you all about the trout- 
fishing. To think it is only now you have come to Acton, after 
aH !” 

Then she took Phil upstairs, opening a door here and there 
as they went. Perfect purity and a certain ascetic comfortable- 
ness marked each of the rooms. 

“You mustn’t pretend you know, my dear,” she said to Phil ; 
“but they are embroidering a beautiful gift of house-linen for 
you, just as beautiful as what they gave to Colombe. Our found- 
ress comes down next week for the presentation. You will say 
when you see it that not money, but only love, could inspire 
such work. 

“Oh, we are happy, my dear. Each one of us is what she 
would be in her own home if God had not willed us to be home- 
less for a time. We are gardeners, we are cooks, we are house- 
wives, we are dairy-women, we have our bees and our fowls, 
except the very old of us, who sit in the sun and wait for the 
long rest. The more servile work of the house is done for us, 
but the work that ladies love to do in their own kingdom we do 
for ourselves.” 

“You are ten years younger, Aunt Fin.” 

“I am the child of the house, and I need to be the youngest, 
since I direct the worldly affairs of it. The worst of it is that 
we are so happy that none of us will want to die. But you 
have not seen the best of all.” 

She opened slowly and softly the door of the great room 


160 


HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. 


with its tarnished glories which once, long ago in the great days, 
had been the ball-room of Castle O’Kelly. 

It was dim and quiet now. There was no sound in it save 
the crooning of a dove on the window-sill. At the far end a 
little rosy light throbbed like a heart before the altar. 

They knelt down for a second or two, then withdrew, and 
left the chapel to the one or two quiet old souls who were pray- 
ing there. 

“Father Tom says Mass every morning,” said Miss O’Kelly, 
when the door had closed behind them. “And when the winter 
comes and the storms beat so against his little church the people 
are to come here. The people are delighted with the new state of 
affairs at Castle O’Kelly. Why, there is hardly a great old name 
in Ireland which is not represented here. The residence of so much 
quality has made the Glen feel quite aristocratic. In Dublin, 
no matter how kindly our foundress strove, we must always feel 
that our home was a charity. Kow we are in our right place, 
among the people, of all others, to whom money means nothing 
and blood and brains and virtue and beauty much. The Glen 
has never bent the knee to Mammon. To the Glen ‘th’ ould 
blood’ yet counts as a thing all honorable.” 


PRINTED BY BKNZIGER BROTHERS, NEW YORK. 


Standard Catholic Books 

PUBLISHED BY 

BENZIGER BROTHERS, 

Cincinnati: NEW YORK: Chicago: 

343 Main St. 36 and 38 Barclay St. 211-213 Madison St. 


DOCTRINE, INSTRUCTION, DEVOTION. 

ABANDONMENT; or, Absolute Surrender of Self to Divine Providence. 

Rev. J. P. Caussade, S.J. net, o 40 

ADORATION OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. Tesniere. Cloth, 

net, 1 25 

ALPHONSUS LIGUORI, ST. Complete Ascetic Works. 22 vols., each, 

net, 1 25 

ANALYSIS OF THE GOSPELS. Rev. L. A. Lambert, LL.D. net, 1 25 
APOSTLES’ CREED, THE. Rev. Muller, C.SS.R. || net, 1 10 

ART OF PROFITING BY OUR FAULTS. Rev. J. Tissot. net, o 40 

BIBLE, THE HOLY. o 80 

BIRTHDAY SOUVENIR. Mrs. A. E. Buchanan. o 50 

BLESSED VIRGIN, THE. Rev. Dr. Keller. o 75 

BLOSSOMS OF THE CROSS. Emily Giehrl. i 25 

BOOK OF THE PROFESSED. 

Vol. I. net, 0 75 

Vol. II. net, o 60 

Vol. III. net, o 60 

BOYS’ AND GIRLS’ MISSION BOOK. By the Redemptorist Fathers, o 35 
Per 100, 17 50 

CATECHISM EXPLAINED, THE. Spirago-Clarke. net, 2 50 

CATHOLIC BELIEF. Faa di Bruno. 

Paper, *0.25; 100 copies, 15 00 

Cloth, *0.50; 25 copies, 7 50 

CATHOLIC CEREMONIES and Explanation of the Ecclesiastical Year. 
Abbe Durand. 

Paper, *0.30; 25 copies, 4 50 

Cloth, *0.60; 25 copies, 9 00 

CATHOLIC PRACTICE AT CHURCH AND AT HOME. Rev. Alex. L. 
A. Klauder. 

Paper, *0.30; 25 copies, 4 50 

Cloth, *0.60; 25 copies, 9 00 

CATHOLIC TEACHING FOR CHILDREN. Winifrid Wray. o 40 

CATHOLIC WORSHIP. Rev. R. Brennan, LL.D. 

Paper, *0.15; 100 copies, 10 00 

Cloth, *0.25; 100 copies, 17 00 

CHARACTERISTICS OF TRUE DEVOTION. Rev. N. Grou, S.J. net, o 75 
CHARITY THE ORIGIN OF EVERY BLESSING. o 60 

CHILD OF MARY. Prayer-Book for Children. o 60 

CHILD’S PRAYER-BOOK OF THE SACRED HEART. o 20 

CHRISTIAN FATHER. Right Rev. W. Cramer. 

Paper, *0.25; 25 copies, 3 75 

Cloth, *0.40; 25 copies, 6 00 

I 


CHRISTIAN MOTHER. Right Rev. W. CraMek. 

Paper, *0.25; 25 copies, 3 7 5 

Cloth, *0.40; 25 copies, 6 00 

CHURCH AND HER ENEMIES. Rev. M. Muller, C.SS.R. || net, 1 10 
COMEDY OF ENGLISH PROTESTANTISM. A. F. Marshall. net, o 75 

COMPLETE OFFICE OF HOLY WEEK. o 50 

100 copies, 25 00 

COMMUNION. ) Per 100, net, 3 50 

CONFESSION. (. Edited by Rev. John J. Nash, D.D. Per 100, net, 3 50 

CONFIRMATION. ) Per 100, net, 3 50 

COUNSELS OF ST. ANGELA to Her Sisters in Religion. net, 0 25 

DEVOTION OF THE HOLY ROSARY and the Five Scapulars. || net, o 75 

DEVOTIONS AND PRAYERS FOR THE SICK-ROOM. Krebs, C.SS.R. 

Cloth, net, 1 00 

DEVOTIONS AND PRAYERS OF ST. ALPHONSUS. A Complete 
Prayer-book. fi 00 

DEVOTIONS TO THE SACRED HEART for the First Fridgy of Every 
Month. By Pere Huguet. o 40 

DEVOUT INSTRUCTIONS, GOFFINE’S. 1.00; 25 copies, 17 50 


DIGNITY AND DUTY OF THE PRIEST; or, Selva, a Collection of Mate- 
rial for Ecclesiastical Retreats. By St. Alphonsus de Liguori. net, 1 25 


DIGNITY, AUTHORITY, DUTIES OF PARENTS, ECCLESIASTICAL 
AND CIVIL POWERS. By Rev. M. Muller, C.SS.R. || net, 1 40 

DIVINE OFFICE: Explanations of the Psalms and Canticles. By St. Al- 
phonsus de Liguori. net, 1 25 

EPISTLES AND GOSPELS. 0.25; 100 copies, 1900 

EUCHARIST AND PENANCE. Rev. M. Muller, C.SS.R. || net, 1 10 
EUCHARISTIC CHRIST, Reflections and Considerations on the Blessed 
Sacrament. Rev. A. Tesniere. net, 1 00 

EUCHARISTIC GEMS. A Thought About the Most Blessed Sacrament for 
Every Day in the Year. By Rev. L. C. Coelenbier. 0 75 

EXPLANATION OF COMMANDMENTS, ILLUSTRATED. 1 00 

EXPLANATION OF THE APOSTLES’ CREED, ILLUSTRATED. 1 00 

EXPLANATION OF THE BALTIMORE CATECHISM OF CHRISTIAN 
DOCTRINE. Rev. Th. L. Kinkead. net, 1 00 

EXPLANATION OF THE COMMANDMENTS, Precepts of the Church. 

Rev. M. Muller, C.SS.R. || net, 1 10 

EXPLANATION OF THE GOSPELS and of Catholic Worship. Rev. L. A. 
Lambert. 

Paper, *0.30; 25 copies, 4 50 

Cloth, *0.60; 25 copies, 9 00 

EXPLANATION OF THE HOLY SACRAMENTS, ILLUSTRATED. 1 00 

EXPLANATION OF THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS. Rev. M. 
v. Cochem. x 25 

EXPLANATION OF THE OUR FATHER AND THE HAIL MARY. 
Rev. R. Brennan, LL.D. 0 75 

EXPLANATION OF THE PRAYERS AND CEREMONIES OF THE 
MASS, ILLUSTRATED. Rev. D. I. Lanslots, O.S.B. i 25 

EXPLANATION OF THE SALVE REGINA. Liguori. 0 75 

EXTREME UNCTION. 

100 copies, 

FAMILIAR EXPLANATION OF CATHOLIC DOCTRINE. 

Muller, C.SS.R. 

FIRST AND GREATEST COMMANDMENT. By Rev. M. 

C.SS.R. 

FIRST COMMUNICANT’S MANUAL. 

100 copies, 


0 10 
6 00 

Rev. M. 

1 00 
Muller, 
| net, 1 40 

Jo 50 
25 00 


FLOWERS OF THE PASSION. Thoughts of St. Paul of the Cross. By 
Rev. Louis Th. de Jesus-Agonisanx. *0.50; per 100 copies, 30 00 


FOLLOWING OF CHRIST. Thomas a Kempis. 

With Reflections, to.50; 100 copies, 25 00 

Without Reflections, to.45; 100 copies, 22 50 

Edition dc luxe, fi 50 

FOUR LAST THINGS, THE: Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell. Medita- 
tions. Father M. v. Cochem. Cloth, o 75 

GARLAND OF PRAYER. With Nuptial Mass. Leather, fo 90 

GENERAL CONFESSION MADE EASY. Rev. A. Konings, C.SS.R. 
Flexible. ||o. 15 ; 100 copies, 1000 

GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. Verheyen, 
O.S.B. net, 0 30 

GLORIES OF DIVINE GRACE. Dr. M. J. Scheeben. net, 1 50 

GLORIES OF MARY. St. Alphonsus he Liguori. 2 vols., net, 2 50 

GOFFINE’S DEVOUT INSTRUCTIONS. 140 Illustrations. Cloth, 1.00; 
25 copies, 1 7 50 

GOLDEN SANDS. Little Counsels for the Sanctification and Happiness of 

Daily Life. 

Third Series, o 50 

Fourth Series, o 50 

Fifth Series, o 50 

GRACE AND THE SACRAMENTS. By Rev. M. Muller, C.SS.R. 

[| net, 1 25 

GREAT MEANS OF SALVATION AND OF PERFECTION. St. Al- 
phonsus de Liguori. net, 1 25 

GREAT SUPPER OF GOD, THE. A Treatise on Weekly Communion. By 
Rev. S. Coube, S.J. Edited by Rev. F. X. Brady, S.J. Cloth, net, 1 00 


GREETINGS TO THE CHRIST-CHILD, a Collection of Poems for the 
Young. Illustrated. 060 

GUIDE TO CONFESSION AND COMMUNION. to 60 

HANDBOOK OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. By S. J. W. Wil- 
mers. net, 1 50 

HAPPY YEAR, A. Abbe Lasausse. net, 1 00 

PIE ART OF ST. JANE FRANCES DE CHANTAL. Thoughts and Prayers. 
Compiled by the Sisters of the Divine Compassion. net, o 40 

HELP FOR THE POOR SOULS IN PURGATORY. fo so 

PIIDDEN TREASLTRE: The Value and Excellence of the Holy Mass. By 
St. Leonard of Pt. Maurice. o 50 

HISTORY OF THE MASS. By Rev. J. O’Brien. net, 1 25 

HOLY EUCHARIST. By St. Alphonsus de Liguori. The Sacrifice, the 
Sacrament and the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ. Novena to the Holy 
Ghost. net, 1 25 


HOLY MASS. By Rev. M. Muller, C.SS.R. || net, 1 25 

HOLY MASS. By St. Alphonsus de Liguori. net, 1 25 

HOW TO COMFORT THE SICK. Rev. Jos. A. Krebs, C.SS.R. Cloth, 

net, 1 00 

HOW TO MAKE TPIE MISSION. By a Dominican Father. Paper, o 10; 

per 100, 5 00 

ILLUSTRATED PRAYER-BOOK FOR CHILDREN, to.25; 100 copies, 17 00 
IMITATION OF CPIRIST. See “Following of Christ.” 


IMITATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. Translated by Mrs. A. 
R. Bennett-Gladstone. 

Plain Edition, to 50 

Edition de luxe, fi 50 

IMITATION OF THE SACRED HEART. By Rev. F. Arnoudt, S.J. ti 25 
INCARNATION, BIRTH, AND INFANCY OF JESUS CHRIST; or, the 
Mysteries of Faith. By St. Alphonsus de Liguori. net, 1 25 

INDULGENCES, A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO. Rev. P. M. Bernad, 
O.M.I. 0 75 

IN HEAVEN WE KNOW OUR OWN. By Pere S. J. Blot. o 60 


3 


INSTRUCTIONS AND PRAYERS FOR THE CATHOLIC FATHER. 

Right Rev. Dr. A. Egger. to 75 

INSTRUCTIONS AND PRAYERS FOR THE CATHOLIC MOTHER. 
Right Rev. Dr. A. Egger. to 75 

INSTRUCTIONS, Fifty-two, on the Principal Truths of Our Holy Religion. 

By Rev. Thos. F. Ward. . net, o 75 

INSTRUCTIONS FOR FIRST COMMUNICANTS. By Rev. Dr. J. 

Schmitt. net, 0 50 

INSTRUCTIONS ON THE COMMANDMENTS OF GOD and the Sacra- 
ments of the Church. By St. Alphonsus de Liguori. 

Paper, 0.25; 25 copies, 3 75 

Cloth, 0.40; 25 copies, 6 00 

INTERIOR OF JESUS AND MARY. Grou. 2 vols., net, 2 00 

INTRODUCTION TO A DEVOUT LIFE. By St. Francis de Sales. 

Cloth, to.50; 100 copies, 30 00 

JESUS THE GOOD SHEPHERD. Right Rev. L. de Goesbriand, D.D., 
Bishop of Burlington. net, 0 75 

LABORS OF THE APOSTLES, Their Teaching of the Nations. By Right 
Rev. L. de Goesbriand, D.D., Bishop of Burlington. net, 1 00 

LETTERS OF ST. ALPHONSUS DE LIGUORI. 4 vols., each vol., net, 1 25 

LETTERS OF ST. ALPHONSUS LIGUORI and General Alphabetical In- 
dex to St. Alphonsus’ Works. net, 1 25 

LITTLE BOOK OF SUPERIORS. net, o 60 

LITTLE CHILD OF MARY. A Small Prayer-book, to.35; 100 copies, 21 00 
LITTLE MANUAL OF ST. ANTHONY. Illustrated. to.6o; 100 copies, 

36 00 

LITTLE MONTH OF MAY. By Ella McMahon. Flexible, o 25 

100 copies, 19 00 

LITTLE MONTH OF THE SOULS IN PURGATORY. 0.25; 100 copies, 

19 00 

LITTLE OFFICE OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. 0.05; per 
100, 2 50 

LITTLE PRAYER-BOOK OF THE SACRED HEART. By Blessed Mar- 
garet Mary Alacoque. to 40 

MANIFESTATION OF CONSCIENCE. Langogne, O.M.Cap. net, o 50 
MANUAL OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. Complete Manual of Devotion of 

the Mother of God. to 60 

MANUAL OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST. Conferences on the Blessed Sac- 
rament and Eucharistic Devotions. By Rev. F. X. Lasance. to 75 

MANUAL OF THE HOLY FAMILY. to 60 

MARINE COROLLA. Poems by Father Edmund of the Heart of Mary, C.P. 

Cloth, 1 25 

MASS, THE, OUR GREATEST TREASURE. By Rev. F. X. Lasance. 

Cloth, to 75 

MAXIMS AND COUNSELS OF FRANCIS DE SALES. net, 0 35 

MAY DEVOTIONS, NEW. Rev. Augustine Worth, O.S.B. || net, 1 00 
MEANS OF GRACE. By Rev. Richard Brennan, LL.D. *2 50 

MEDITATIONS FOR ALL THE DAYS OF THE YEAR. By Rev. M. 

Hamon, S.S. 5 vols., net, 5 00 

MEDITATIONS FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. Baxter, net, 1 25 

MEDITATIONS FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. Rev. B. Vercruysse, 
S.J. 2 vols., net, 2 75 

MEDITATIONS FOR RETREATS. St. Francis de Sales. Cloth, net, 0 75 
MEDITATIONS FOR SECULAR PRIESTS. Chaignon, S.J. 2 vols., 

net, 4 00 

MEDITATIONS ON THE FOUR LAST THINGS. Father M. v. Cochem. 

o 75 

MEDITATIONS ON THE LAST WORDS FROM THE CROSS. Father 
Charles Perraud. || net , o 50 


4 


ME SI I ON T OF I TFq?T 5 JSLS FE> t THE TEACHINGS, AND THE PAS- 
olOlN OI JESUS CHRIS i. Ilg-Clarke. 2 vols., net , 3 50 

MEDITATIONS ON THE MONTH OF OUR LADY. o 75 

MEDITATIONS ON THE PASSION OF OUR LORD. *0.40; 100 copies, 

24 00 

MEDITATIONS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF JESUS CHRIST. By Rev. 
Francis da Perinaldo. net> 0 7S 

MISCELLANY Historical sketch of the Congregation of the Most Holy 
Redeemer. Rules and Constitutions of the Congregation of the Most Holy 
Redeemer. Instructions on the Religious Stale, By St. Alphonsus de 
Ljguori. netf j 25 

MISSION BOOK FOR THE MARRIED. Very Rev. F. Girardey, C.SS.R. 
0.50;. 100 copies, 2S 00 

MISSION BOOK FOR THE SINGLE. Very Rev. F. Girardey, C.SS.R. 
0.50; 100 copies, 25 00 

MISSION BOOK OF THE REDEMPTORIST FATHERS. A Manual of 

Instructions and Prayers to Preserve the Fruits of the Mission. Drawn 
chiefly from the works of St. Alphonsus Liguori. 0.50; 100 copies, 25 00 


MIS 1 RESS OF NOVICES, THE, Instructed in Her Duties. Leguay. 

net, o 75 

MOMENTS BEFORE THE TABERNACLE. Rev. Matthew Russell, S.J. 


net, 0 40 

MONTH, NEW, OF ST. JOSEPH. St. Francis de Sales. o 25 

MONTH, NEW, OF THE HOLY ANGELS. St. Francis de Sales. 0.25; 
100 copies, 19 00 

MONTH, NEW, OF THE SACRED HEART. St. Francis de Sales, o 25 

MONTH OF MARY, NEW. St. Francis de Sales. o 25 

MONTH OF MAY ; a Series of Meditations on the Mysteries of the Life of 

the Blessed Virgin. By F. Debussi, S.J. o 50 

MONTH OF THE DEAD; or, Prompt and Easy Deliverance of t;he Souls 
in Purgatory. By Abbe Cloquet. 0 50 

MOST HOLY ROSARY. Thirty-one Meditations. Right Rev. W. Cramer, 
D.D. 0 50 

MOST HOLY SACRAMENT. Rev. Dr. Jos. Keller. 0 75 

MY' FIRST COMMUNION: The Happiest Day of My Life. Brennan. 075 
NEW RULE OF THE THIRD ORDER. 0.05; per 100, 3 00 

NEW TESTAMENT. Cheap Edition. 

321T10, flexible cloth, net, o 15 

32mo, lambskin, limp, round corners, gilt edges, net, 0 75 

NEW TESTAMENT. Illustrated Edition. 

24mo, garnet cloth, with 100 full-page illustrations, net, 0 60 

24mo, Rutland Roan, limp, round corners, red or gold edges, net, 1 25 

NEW TESTAMENT. India Paper Edition. 

3003 Lambskin, limp, round corners, gilt edges, net, 1 00 

4011 Persian Calf, limp, round corners, gilt edges, net, 1 25 


4017 Morocco, limp, round corners, gold edges, gold roll inside, net, 1 50 


NEW TESTAMENT. Large Print Edition. 

umo, cloth, round corners, red edges, net, o 75 

i2mo, American Seal, limp, round corners, red or gold edges, net, 1 50 
NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES. By Right Rev. Mgr. Thomas J. Conaty, 
D.D. i2mo, 0 60 

OFFICE, COMPLETE, OF HOLY WEEK. *0.50; 100 copies, 25 00 

ON THE ROAD TO ROME. By W. Richards. net, 0 50 

OUR BIRTHDAY BOUQUET. E. C. Donnelly. i 00 

OUR LADY OF GOOD COUNSEL IN GENAZZANO. Mgr. Geo. F. 

Dillon, D.D. 0 75 

OUR FAVORITE DEVOTIONS. By Very Rev. Dean A. A. Lings, to 60 

OUR FAVORITE NOVENAS. Very Rev. Dean A. A. Lings. to 60 


OUR MONTHLY DEVOTIONS. By Very Rev. Dean A. A. Lings, ti 25 


5 


OUR OWN WILL AND HOW TO DETECT IT IN OUR ACTIONS. 

Rev. John Allen, D.D. net, o 75 

PARACLETE, THE. Devotions to the Holy Ghost. ||o 60 

PARADISE ON EARTH OPENED TO ALL; A Religious Vocation the 

Surest Way in Life, By Rev. Antonio Natale, S.J. net, 0 40 

PASSION AND DEATH OF JESUS CHRIST. By St. Alphonsus de 
Liguori. net, 1 25 

PASSION FLOWERS. Poems by Father Edmund, of the Heart of Mary, 
C.P. 1 25 

PEARLS FROM THE CASKET OF THE SACRED HEART. Eleanor C. 

Donnelly. o 50 


PEOPLE’S MISSION BOOK, THE. Paper, 0.10; per 100, 6 00 

PERFECT RELIGIOUS, THE. De la Motte. Cloth, net, 1 00 

PICTORIAL LIVES OF THE SAINTS. New, very cheap edition, with 
Reflections for Every Day in the Year. 1.00; 25 copies, 17 50 

PIOUS PREPARATION FOR FIRST HOLY COMMUNION. Rev. F. X. 
Lasance. Cloth, to 75 


POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS ON MARRIAGE. Very Rev. F. Girardey, 
C.SS.R. Paper, 0.25; 25 copies, 3 75 

Cloth, 0.40; 25 copies, 6 00 

POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS ON PRAYER. By Very Rev. Ferreol 
Girardey, C.SS.R. Paper, 0.25; 25 copies, 3 75 

Cloth, 0.40; 25 copies, 6 00 

POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS on the Bringing Up of Chil- 
dren. By Very Rev. F. Girardey, C.SS.R. Paper, 0.25; 25 copies, 3 75 
Cloth, 0.40; 25 copies, 6 00 

PRAYER-BOOK FOR LENT. Gethsemani, Jerusalem, and Golgotha. Rev. 

A. Geyer. to 50 

PRAYER. The Great Means of Obtaining Salvation. By St. Alphonsus de 
Liguori. o 50 


PREACHING. Vol. XV. St. Alphonsus de Liguori. The Exercises of the 
Missions. Various Counsels. Instructions on the Commandments and 
Sacraments. net, 1 25 

PREPARATION FOR DEATH. St. Alphonsus de Liguori. Considera- 
tions on the Eternal Truths. Maxims of Eternity. Rule of Life, net, 1 25 


PRODIGAL SON; or, the Sinner’s Return to God. 


|| net, 1 00 


REASONABLENESS OF CATHOLIC CEREMONIES AND PRACTICES. 


Rev. J. J. Burke. *0 35 

RELIGIOUS STATE, THE. With a Treatise on the Vocation to the Priest- 
hood. By St. Alphonsus de Liguori. o 50 

REVELATIONS OF THE SACRED HEART to Blessed Margaret Mary. 

Bougaud. Cloth, net, 1 50 

SACRAMENTALS OF THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. Rev. A. A. 
Lambing, D.D. Paper, 0.30; 25 copies, 4 50 

Cloth, 0.60; 25 copies, 9 00 

SACRAMENTALS — Prayer, etc. By Rev. M. Muller, C.SS.R. || net, 1 00 
SACRED HEART, THE. Rev. Dr. Joseph Keller. o 75 

SACRED HEART, THE, Studied in the Sacred Scriptures. Rev. H. Saint- 
rain, C.SS.R. net, 2 00 

SACRIFICE OF THE MASS WORTHILY CELEBRATED, THE. By 
Rev. Father Chaignon, S.J. net, 1 50 

SECRET OF SANCTITY. St. Francis de Sales. net, 1 00 

SERAPHIC GUIDE, THE. A Manual for the Members of the Third Order 
of St. Francis. By a Franciscan Father. fo 60 

SHORT CONFERENCES ON THE LITTLE OFFICE OF THE IM- 
MACULATE CONCEPTION. Very Rev. J. Rainer. o 50 

SHORT STORIES ON CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. From the French by 
Mary McMahon. net, 0 75 

SPIRITUAL CRUMBS FOR HUNGRY LITTLE SOULS. Mary E. 

Richardson. o 50 

SPIRITUAL DIRECTION. net, 0 60 


6 


SPIRITUAL EXERCISES FOR TEN DAYS’ RETREAT. Very Rev. v. 

Smetana, C.SS.R. net, i oo 

SODALISTS’ VADE MECUM. to 50 

SONGS AND SONNETS. By Maurice Francis Egan. i 00 

SOUVENIR OF THE NOVITIATE. By Rev. Edward I. Taylor, net, o 60 
ST. ANTHONY. Rev. Dr. Jos. Keller. 0 75 

ST. JOSEPH, OUR ADVOCATE. By Father Huguet. 0 90 

STATIONS OF THE CROSS. Illustrated. to 50 

STORIES FOR FIRST COMMUNICANTS. Rev. J. A. Keller, D.D. o 50 
STRIVING AFTER PERFECTION. Rev. Joseph Bayma, S.J. net, 1 00 


SLTRE WAY TO A HAPPY MARRIAGE. Rev. Edward I. Taylor. 

Paper, 0.25; 25 copies, 3 75 

Cloth, 0.40; 25 copies, 6 00 


THIRTY-TWO INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE MONTH OF MAY. Rev. 
Thomas F. Ward. net, o 75 

THOUGHT FROM BENEDICTINE SAINTS. net, o 35 

THOUGHT FROM ST. ALPHONSUS. net, o 35 

THOUGHT FROM ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI and His Saints. net, 0 35 

THOUGHT FROM ST. IGNATIUS. net, 0 35 

THOUGHT FROM ST. THERESA. net, 0 35 

THOUGHT FROM ST. VINCENT DE PAUL. net, o 35 

THOUGHTS AND COUNSELS for the Consideration of Catholic Young 
Men. Rev. P. A. Doss, S.J. || net, 1 25 

TRUE POLITENESS. Abbe Francis Demore. net, o 60 

TRUE SPOUSE OF JESUS CHRIST. By St. Alphonsus be Liguori. 2 
vols., Centenary Edition, net, 2 50 

The same in 1 volume, net, 1 00 

TWO SPIRITUAL RETREATS FOR SISTERS. By Rev. E. Zollner. 

net, 1 00 

VENERATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. Her Feasts, Prayers, Re- 
ligious Orders, and Sodalities. By Rev. B. Rohner, O.S.B. i 25 


VICTORIES OF THE MARTYRS; or, the Lives of the Most Celebrated 
Martyrs of the Church. Vol. IX. By Alphonsus de Liguori. net, 1 25 

VISITS TO JESUS IN THE TABERNACLE. Hours and Half Hours of 
Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. With a Novena to the Holy 
Ghost and Devotions for Mass, Holy Communion, etc. Rev. F. X. La- 
sance. Cloth, fi 25 

VISITS TO THE MOST HOLY SACRAMENT and to the Blessed Virgin 
Mary. By St. Alphonsus de Liguori. to 50 

VOCATIONS EXPLAINED: Matrimony, Virginity, The Religious State, 
and the Priesthood. By a Vincentian Father. 0.10; 100 copies, 6 00 

WAY OF INTERIOR PEACE. By Rev. Father De Lehen, S.J. net, 1 23 


WAY OF SALVATION AND PERFECTION. Meditations, Pious Reflect 


tions. Spiritual Treatises. St. Alphonsus de Liguori. net, 1 25 

WAY OF THE CROSS. Paper, 0.05; 100 copies, 2 50 

WORDS OF JESUS CHRIST DURING HIS PASSION. Explained in 
Their Literal and Moral Sense. By Rev. F. X. Schouppe, S.J. *0.25; too 
copies, 17 00 

WORDS OF WISDOM. A Concordance to the Sapiential Books. Edited by 
Rev. John J. Bell. net, 1 25 

YEAR OF THE SACRED HEART. A Thought for Every Day of the Year. 
Anna T. Sadlier. o 50 


YOUNG GIRLS’ BOOK OF PIETY. AT SCHOOL AND AT HOME. A 
Prayer-book for Girls in Convent Schools and Academies. Golden Sands. 

+1 00 

ZEAL IN THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY; The Means by which Every 
Priest May Render His Ministry Honorable and Fruitful. By Abbe 
Dubois. ne ** 1 5 ® 


7 


JUVENILES. 


ADVENTURES OF A CASKET. o 45 

ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. o 45 

AN ADVENTURE WITH THE APACHES. By Gabriel Ferry. o 40 

ANTHONY. A Tale of the Time of Charles II. of England. o 45 

ARMORER OF SOLINGEN. By William Herchenbach. o 40 

BERTHA; or, Consequences of a Fall. o 45 

BEST FOOT FORWARD. By Father Finn. 0 85 

BETTER PART. o 45 

BISTOURI. By A. Melandri. 0 40 

BLACK LADY, AND ROBIN RED BREAST. By Canon Schmid. 0 25 

BLANCHE DE MASSILLY. 0 45 

BLISSYLVANIA POST-OFFICE. By Marion Ames Taggart. 0 40 

BOYS IN THE BLOCK. By Maurice F. Egan. 0 25 

BRIC-A-BRAC DEALER. o 45 

BUZZER’S CHRISTMAS. By Mary T. Waggaman. 0 25 

BY BRANSCOME RIVER. By Marion Ames Taggart. o 40 

CAKE AND THE EASTER EGGS. By Canon Schmid. 0 25 

CANARY BIRD. By Canon Schmid. o 45 

CAPTAIN ROUGEMONT. o 45 

CASSILDA; or the Moorish Princess. 0 45 

CAVE BY THE BEECH FORK, THE. By Rev. H. S. Spalding, S.J. 
Cloth, o 85 

CLAUDE LIGHTFOOT; or, How the Problem Was Solved. By Father 
Finn. 0 85 

COLLEGE BOY, A. By Anthony Yorke. Cloth, o 85 

CONVERSATION ON HOME EDUCATION. o 45 

DIMPLING’S SUCCESS. By Clara Mulholland. 0 40 

EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE. An Account of the Religious 
Persecution. o 45 

ETHELRED PRESTON; or the Adventures of a Newcomer. By Father 
Finn. o 85 

EVERY-DAY GIRL, AN. By Mary C. Crowley. o 40 

FATAL DIAMONDS. By E. C. Donnelly. o 25 

FINN, REV. F. J„ S.J. : 

HIS FIRST AND LAST APPEARANCE. Illustrated. 1 00 

THE BEST FOOT FORWARD. o 85 

THAT FOOTBALL GAME. o 85 

ETHELRED PRESTON. o 85 

CLAUDE LIGHTFOOT. o 85 

HARRY DEE. o 85 

TOM PLAYFAIR. o 85 

PERCY WYNN. o 85 

MOSTLY BOYS. o 85 

FISHERMAN’S DAUGHTER. o 45 

FIVE O’CLOCK STORIES; or, The Old Tales Told Again. o 75 

FLOWER OF THE FLOCK, THE, and the Badgers of Belmont. By 
Maurice F. Egan. o 85 

FRED’S LITTLE DAUGHTER. By Sara Trainer Smith. 0 40 

GERTRUDE’S EXPERIENCE. o 45 

GODFREY THE HERMIT. By Canon Schmid. o 25 

GREAT-GRANDMOTHER’S SECRET. o 45 

HARRY DEE: or, Working it Out. By Father Finn. o 85 

HEIR OF DREAMS, AN. By Sallie Margaret O’Malley. o 40 

HER FATHER’S RIGHT HAND. o 45 


8 


HIS FIRST AND LAST APPEARANCE. By Father Finn. i oo 

HOP BLOSSOMS. By Canon Schmid. o 25 

HOSTAGE OF WAR, A. By Mary G. Bonesteel. o 40 

HOW THEY WORKED THEIR WAY. By Maurice F. Egan. o 75 

INUNDATION, THE. Canon Schmid. o 40 

JACK HILDRETH ON THE NILE. By Marion Ames Taggart. Cloth, 

o 85 

JACK O’ LANTERN. By Mary T. Waggaman. o 40 

KLONDIKE PICNIC. By Eleanor C. Donnelly. o 85 

LAMP OF THE SANCTUARY. By Cardinal Wiseman. o 25 

LEGENDS OF THE HOLY CHILD JESUS from Many Lands. By A. 

Fowler Lutz. o 75 

LITTLE MISSY. By Mary T. Waggaman. o 40 

LOYAL BLUE AND ROYAL SCARLET. By Marion A. Taggart. o 85 
MADCAP SET AT ST. ANNE’S. By Marion J. Brunowe. o 40 

MARCELLE. A True Story. o 45 

MASTER FRIDOLIN. By Emmy Giehrl. o 25 

MILLY AVELING. By Sara Trainer Smith. Cloth, o 85 

MOSTLY BOYS. By Father Finn. o 85 

MYSTERIOUS DOORWAY. By Anna T. Sadlier. o 40 

MY STRANGE FRIEND. By Father Finn. o 25 

NAN NOBODY. By Mary T. Waggaman. o 40 

OLD CHARLMONT’S SEED-BED. By Sara Trainer Smith. o 40 

OLD ROBBER’S CASTLE. By Canon Schmid. o 25 

OLIVE AND THE LITTLE CAKES. o 45 

OVERSEER OF MAHLBOURG. By Canon Schmid. o 25 

PANCHO AND PANCHITA. By Mary E. Mannix. o 40 

PAULINE ARCHER. By Anna T. Sadlier. o 40 

PERCY WYNN; or, Making a Boy ot Him. By Father Finn. o 85 

PICKLE AND PEPPER. By Ella Loraine Dorsey. o 85 

PRIEST OF AUVRIGNY. o 45 

QUEEN’S PAGE. By Katharine Tynan Hinkson. o 40 

RICHARD; or, Devotion to the Stuarts. o 45 

ROSE BUSH. By Canon Schmid. o 25 

SEA-GULL’S ROCK. By J. Sandeau. o 40 

SUMMER AT WOODVILLE. By Anna T. Sadlier. o 40 

TALES AND LEGENDS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. F. De Capella. o 75 
TAMING OF POLLY. By Ella Loraine Dorsey. 0 85 

THAT FOOTBALL GAME: and What Came of It. By Father Finn. o 85 
THREE GIRLS AND ESPECIALLY ONE. By Marion A. Taggart, o 40 
THREE LITTLE KINGS. By Emmy Giehrl. o 25 

TOM PLAYFAIR; or, Making a Start. By Father Finn. o 85 

TOM’S LUCKPOT. By Mary T. Waggaman. o 40 

TREASURE OF NUGGET MOUNTAIN. By M. A. Taggart. o 85 

VILLAGE STEEPLE, THE. 0 45 

WINNETOU, THE APACHE KNIGHT. By Marion Ames Taggart, o 85 
WRONGFULLY ACCUSED. By William FIerchenbach. o 40 

NOVELS AND STORIES. 

ASER, THE SHEPHERD. A Christmas Story. By Marion Ames Taggart. 

net, o 35 

BEZALEEL. A Christmas Story. By Marion Ames Taggart. net, o 35 
CIRCUS RIDER’S DAUGHTER, THE. A Novel. By F. v. Brackel. i 25 

9 


CONNOR D’ARCY’S STRUGGLES. A Novel. By Mrs. W. M. Bertholds. 


i 25 

DION AND THE SIBYLS. A Classic Novel. By Miles Keon. Cloth, i 25 
FABIOLA; or, The Church of the Catacombs. By Cardinal Wiseman. Pop- 
ular Illustrated Edition, 0.90; Edition de luxe, 5 00 

FABIOLA’S SISTERS. A Companion Volume to Cardinal Wiseman’s 
“ Fabiola.” By A. C. Clarke. i 25 

HEIRESS OF CRONENSTEIN, THE. By the Countess Hahn-Hahn. i 25 

IDOLS; or, The Secrets of the Rue Chausee d’Antin. De Navery. i 25 

LET NO MAN PUT ASUNDER. A Novel. By Josephine Marie. i 00 

LINKED LIVES. A Novel. By Lady Gertrude Douglas. i 50 

MARCELLA GRACE. A Novel. By Rosa Mulholland. Illustrated Edi- 
tion. 1 25 

MISS ERIN. A Novel. By M. E. Francis. i 25 

MONK’S PARDON, THE. A Historical Novel of the Time of Phillip IV. 

of Spain. By Raoul de Navery. i 25 

MR. BILLY BUTTONS. A Novel. By Walter Lecky. i 25 

OUTLAW OF CAMARGUE, THE. A Novel. By A. de Lamothe. i 25 

PASSING SHADOWS. A Novel. By Anthony Yorke. i 25 

PERE MONNIER’S WARD. A Novel. By Walter Lecky. i 25 

PETRONILLA. By E. C. Donnelly. • 1 00 

PRODIGAL’S DAUGHTER, THE. By Lelia Hardin Bugg. i 00 

ROMANCE OF A PLAYWRIGHT. By Vte. Henri de Bornier. i 00 


ROUND TABLE OF THE REPRESENTATIVE AMERICAN CATHOLIC 
NOVELISTS. Complete Stories, with Biographies, Portraits, etc. Cloth, 

1 5o 

ROUND TABLE OF THE REPRESENTATIVE FRENCH CATHOLIC 
NOVELISTS. Complete Stories, with Biographies, Portraits, etc. Cloth, 

1 50 

ROUND TABLE OF THE REPRESENTATIVE IRISH AND ENGLISH 
CATHOLIC NOVELISTS. Complete Stories, Biographies, Portraits, etc. 
Cloth. 1 50 

TRUE STORY OF MASTER GERARD, THE. By Anna T. Sadlier. i 25 
VOCATION OF EDWARD CONWAY. A Novel. By Mawrice F. Egan. 

1 25 

WOMAN OF FORTUNE, A. By Christian Reid. i 25 

WORLD WELL LOST. By Esther Robertson. o 75 


LIVES AND HISTORIES, 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA. Edited by J. F. X. 

O’Conor. Cloth, net, 1 25 

BLESSED ONES OF 1888, THE. Bl. Clement Maria Hoffbauer, C.SS.R. ; 
Bl. Louis Marie Grignon de Monfort; Bl. Brother Aegidius Mary of St. 
Joseph; Bl. Josephine Mary of St. Agnes. From the original by Eliza A. 
Donnelly. With Illustrations, 0 50 

HISTORIOGRAPHIA ECCLESIASTICA quam Historiae seriam Solidamque 
Operam Navantibus, Accomodavit Guil. Stang, D.D. || net, 1 00 

HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. Brueck. 2 vols., net, 3 00 
HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. By John Gilmary Shea, 
LL.D. 1 50 

HISTORY OF THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION IN ENGLAND 
AND IRELAND. By Wm. Cobbett. Cloth, net, 0.50; paper, net, 0 25 
LETTERS OF ST. ALPHONSUS LIGUORI. By Rev. Eugene Grimm. 

C.SS.R. Centenary Edition. 5 vols., each, net, 1 25 

LIFE OF BLESSED MARGARET MARY. By Mgr. Bougaud, Bishop of 
Laval. net, 1 50 

LIFE OF CHRIST. Illustrated. By Father M. v. Cochem. t 25 

IO 


LIFE OF FATHER CHARLES SIRE, of the Society of Jesus. By Rev. 
Vital Sire. n et, i oo 

LIFE OF FATHER JOGUES, Missionary Priest of the Society of Jesus. By 
Father F. Martin, S.J. net, o 75 

LIFE OF FR. FRANCIS POILVACIIE, C.SS.R. Paper, net, o 20 

LIFE OF MOTHER FONTBONNE, Foundress of the Sisters of St. Joseph 
of Lyons. By Abbe Rivaux. Cloth, net, 1 25 

LIFE OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. Cloth, net, 5 00 
LIFE OF SISTER ANNE KATHERINE EMMERICH, of the Order of St. 
Augustine. By Rev. Thomas Wegener, O.S.A. net, 1 50 

LIFE OF ST. ALOYSIUS GONZAGA. Edition de luxe. By Rev. Father 
Virgil Cepari, S.J. net, 2 50 

LIFE OF ST. ALOYSIUS GONZAGA, of the Society of Jesus. By Rev. T. 

F. X. O’Conor, S.J. net, o 75 

LIFE OF ST. CATHARINE OF SIENNA. By Edward L. Ayme, M.D. ||i 00 
LIFE OF ST. CLARE OF MONTEFALCO. Locke, O.S.A. net, 0 75 

LIFE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. Illustrated. By Rev. B. Rohner, 
O.S.B. 1 25 

LIFE OF THE VEN. MARY CRESCENTIA HOESS. By Rev. C. Dey- 
mann, O.S.F. net, 1 25 

LITTLE LIVES OF SAINTS FOR CHILDREN. Berthold. 111. Cloth, 

0 75 

LOURDES: Its Inhabitants, Its Pilgrims, Its Miracles. By Rev. R. F. 

Clarke, S.J. 0 75 

NAMES THAT LIVE IN CATHOLIC HEARTS. By Anna T. Sadlier. 

1 00 

OUR BIRTHDAY BOUQUET. By Eleanor C. Donnelly. i 00 

OUR LADY OF GOOD COUNSEL IN GENAZZANO. A History of that 
Ancient Sanctuary. By Anne R. Bennett-Gladstone. o 75 

OUTLINES OF JEWISH HISTORY, From Abraham to Our Lord. Rev. 

F. E. Gigot, S.S. || net, 1 50 

OUTLINES OF NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY. By Rev. F. E. Gigot, S.S. 

Cloth, net, 1 50 

PICTORIAL LIVES OF TLIE SAINTS. Cloth, 1.00; 25 copies, 17 50 

REMINISCENCES OF RT. REV. EDGAR P. WADHAMS, D.D., First 
Bishop of Ogdensburg. By Rev. C. A. Walworth. || net, 1 00 

ST. ANTHONY, THE SAINT OF THE WHOLE WORLD. Rev. Thomas 
F. Ward. Cloth, 0 75 

STORY OF THE DIVINE CHILD. By Very Rev. Dean A. A. Lings. 0 75 

VICTORIES OF THE MARTYRS. By St. Alphonsus de Liguori. net, 125 

VISIT TO EUROPE AND THE HOLY LAND. By Rev. IT. Fairbanks. 

1 50 

WIDOWS AND CHARITY. Work of the Women of Calvary and Its 
Foundress. Abbe Chaffanjon. Paper, || net, o 50 

WOMEN OF CATHOLICITY. By Anna T. Sadlier. i 00 


THEOLOGY, LITURGY, SERMONS, SCIENCE AND 
PHILOSOPHY. 

ABRIDGED SERMONS, for All Sundays of the Year. By St. Alphonsus 
de Liguori. Centenary Edition. Grimm, C.SS.R. net, 1 25 

BAD CHRISTIAN, THE. By Rev. F. Hunolt, S.J. Translated by Rev. J. 

Allen, D.D. 2 vols., net * 5 00 

BLESSED SACRAMENT, SERMONS ON THE. Especially for _the Forty 
Hours* Adoration. By Rev. J. B. Scheurer, D.D. Edited by Rev. x. X. 
Lasance. net ’ 1 50 

BREVE COMPENDIUM THEOLOGIAE DOGMATICAE ET MORALTS 
una cum aliquibus Notionibus Theologiae Canomcae Liturgiae, Pastoralis 
et Mysticae, ac Philosophiae Christianae. Berthier, M.S. || net, 2 50 

H 


BUSINESS GUIDE FOR PRIESTS. Stang, D.D. net, o 85 

CANONICAL PROCEDURE IN DISCIPLINARY AND CRIMINAL 
CASES OF CLERICS. By Rev. F. Droste. net, 1 50 

CHILDREN OF MARY, SERMONS FOR THE. From the Italian of Rev. 

F. Callerio. Edited by Rev. R. F. Clarke, S.J. net, 1 50 

CHRISTIAN ANTHROPOLOGY. Sermons. By Rev. John Thein. net, 2 50 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. A Treatise on the Human Soul. By Rev. J. 

T. Driscoll, S.T.L. net, 1 25 

CHRISTIAN’S LAST END, THE. Sermons. By Rev. F. Hunolt, S.J. 

Translated by Rev. J. Allen, D.D. 2 vols., net, 5 00 

CHRISTIAN’S MODEL, THE. Sermons. By Rev. F. Hunolt, S.J. Trans- 
lated by Rev. J. Allen, D.D. 2 vols., net, 5 00 

CHRISTIAN STATE OF LIFE, THE. Sermons. By Rev. F. Hunolt, S.J. 
Translated by Rev. J. Allen, D.D. net, 5 00 

CHRIST IN TYPE AND PROPHECY. Rev. A. J. Maas, S.J., Professor 
of Oriental Languages in Woodstock College. 2 vols., net, 4 00 

CHURCH ANNOUNCEMENT BOOK. net, o 25 

CHURCH TREASURER’S PEW. Collection and Receipt Book. net, 1 00 

COMMENTARIUM IN FACULTATES APOSTOLICAS EPISCOPIS 
necnon Vicariis et Praefectis Apostolicis per Modum Formularum concedi 
solitas ad usum Venerabilis Cleri, imprimis Americani concinnatum ab 
Antonio Konings, C.SS.R. Editio quarto, recognita in pluribus emendata 
et aucta, curante Joseph Putzer, C.SS.R. net, 2 25 

COMPENDIUM JURIS CANONICI, ad usum Cleri et Seminariorum hujus 
Regionis accommodatum. net, 2 00 

COMPENDIUM SACRAE LITURGIAE JUNTA RITUM ROMANUM 
una cum Appendice de Jure Ecclesiastico 'Particulari in America Foederata 
Sept, vigente scripsit P. Innocentius Wapelhorst, O.S.F. Editio quinta 
emendatior. net, 2 50 

CONFESSIONAL, THE. By the Right Rev. A. Roeggl, D.D. || net, 1 00 
DATA OF MODERN ETHICS EXAMINED. Ming, S.J. net, 2 00 

DE PHILOSOPHIA MORALI PRAELECTIONES quas in Collegio 
Georgiopolitano Soc. Jesu, Anno 1889-90 Habuit P. Nicolaus Russo. 
Editio altera. net, 2 00 

ECCLESIASTICAL DICTIONARY. By Rev. John Thein. || net, 5 00 
ELEMENTS OF ECCLESIASTICAL LAW. By Rev. S. B. Smith, D.D. 
ECCLESIASTICAL PERSONS. net, 2 50 

ECCLESIASTICAL PUNISHMENTS. net, 2 50 

ECCLESIASTICAL TRIALS. net, 2 50 

FUNERAL SERMONS. By Rev. Aug. Wirth, O.S.B. 2 vols., || net, 2 00 

GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF HOLY SCRIP- 
TURES. By Rev. Francis E. Gigot, S.S. Cloth, net, 2 00 

GOD KNOWABLE AND KNOWN. By Rev. Maurice Ronayne, S.J. 

net, 1 25 

GOOD CHRISTIAN, THE. By Rev. J. Allen, D.D. 2 vols., net, 5 00 
HISTORY OF THE MASS AND ITS CEREMONIES IN THE EASTERN 
AND WESTERN CHURCH. By Rev. John O’Brien. net, 1 25 

LAST THINGS, SERMONS ON THE FOUR. Hunolt. Translated bv 
Rev. John Allen, D.D. 2 vols., net, 5 00 


LENTEN SERMONS. Edited by Augustine Wirth, O.S.B. || net, 2 00 

LIBER STATUS ANIMARUM; or, Parish Census Book. Pocket Edition, 
net, 0.25; half leather, net, 2 00 

LITERARY. SCIENTIFIC, AND POLITICAL VIEWS OF ORESTES A. 

BROWNSON. By H. F. Brownson. net, 1 25 

MARRIAGE PROCESS JN THE UNITED STATES. Smith. net, 2 50 

NDRAL PRINCIPLES AND MEDICAL PRACTICE, THE BASTS OF 
MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. By Rev. Charles Coppens, S.J., Pro- 
fessor of Medical Jurisprudence in the John A. Creighton Medical College, 
Omaha, Neb.; Author of Text-books in Metaphysics, Ethics, etc. net, 1 50 

12 


NATURAL LAW AND LEGAL PRACTICE. Holaind, S.J. net, i 75 

NATURAL THEOLOGY. By B. Boedder, S.J. net , i 50 

NEW AND OLD SERMONS. A Repertory of Catholic Pulpit Eloquence. 
Edited by Rev. Augustine Wirth, O.S.B. 8 vols., || net , 16 00 

OFFICE OF TENEBRAE, THE. Transposed from the Gregorian Chant 
into Modern Notation. By Rev. J. A. McCallen, S.S. net , 0 50 

OUR LORD, THE BLESSED VIRGIN, AND THE SAINTS, SERMONS 
ON. By Rev. Francis Hunolt, S.J. Translated by Rev. John Allen, 
D.D. 2 vols., net , 5 00 

OUTLINES OF DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. By Rev. Sylvester Jos. 
Hunter, S.J. 3 vols., net , 4 50 

OUTLINES OF NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY. Vigot. Cloth, net , 1 50 
PASTORAL THEOLOGY. By Rev. Wm. Stang, D.D. net , 1 50 

PENANCE, SERMONS ON. By Rev. Francis Hunolt, S.J. Translated by 
Rev. John Allen. 2 vols., net , 5 00 

PENITENT CHRISTIAN, THE. Sermons. By Rev. F. Hunolt. Trans- 
lated by Rev. John Allen, D.D. 2 vols., net , 5 00 

PEW-RENT RECEIPT BOOK. net , 1 00 

PRAXIS SYNODALIS. Manuale Synodi Diocesanae ac Provincialis Cele- 
brandae. net , o 60 

PRIEST IN THE PULPIT, THE. A Manual of Homiletics and Catechetics. 
Rev. B. Luebermann. net , 1 50 

PRINCIPLES OF ANTHROPOLOGY AND BIOLOGY. By Rev. T. 

Hughes, S.J. net , o 75 

REGISTRUM BAPTISMORUM. net , 3 50 

REGISTRUM MATRIMONIORUM. net , 3 50 

RITUALE COMPENDIOSUM seu Ordo Administrandi quaedam Sacra- 
menta et alia Officia Ecclesiastica Rite Peragendi ex Rituali Romano, 
novissime edito desumptas. net , 0 75 

ROSARY, SERMONS ON THE MOST HOLY. Frings. net , 1 00 

SACRED HEART, SIX SERMONS ON DEVOTION TO THE. By Rev. 

Dr. E. Bierbaum. net , o 60 

SANCTUARY BOYS’ ILLUSTRATED MANUAL. Embracing the Cere- 
monies of the Inferior Ministers at Low Mass, High Mass, Solemn High 
Mass, Vespers, Asperges, Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament and Ab- 
solution for the Dead. By Rev. J. A. McCallen, S.S. net , 0 50 

SERMON MANUSCRIPT BOOK. net , 2 00 

SERMONS FOR THE SUNDAYS AND CHIEF FESTIVALS OF THE 
ECCLESIASTICAL YEAR. With Two Courses of Lenten Sermons and 
a Triduum for the Forty Hours. By Rev. J. Pottgeiser, S.J. 2 vols., 

net , 2 50 

SERMONS ON THE CHRISTIAN VIRTUES. By Rev. F. Hunolt, S.J. 

Translated by Rev. John Allen. 2 vols., net , 5 00 

SERMONS ON THE DIFFERENT STATES OF LIFE. By Rev. F. 
Hunolt, S.J. Translated by Rev. John Allen. 2 vols., net , 5 00 

SERMONS ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS. By Rev. F. Hunolt, S.J. 

2 vols. Translated by Rev. John Allen, D.D. net , 5 00 

SHORT SERMONS. By Rev. F. Hunolt, S.J. 5 vols., 10 00 

SHORT SERMONS FOR LOW MASSES. Schouppe, S.J. net , 1 25 

SYNOPSIS THEOLOGIAE DOGMATICAE AD MENTEM S. THOMAE 
AOUINATIS, hodiernis moribus accommodata, auctore Ad. Tanquerey, 

S.S. : 

1. THEOLOGLA FUNDAMENTALIS. Half morocco, net, 1 50 

2. THEOLOGIA DOGMATICA SPECIALIS. 2 vols., half morocco, net , 3 00 

THEOLOGTA MORALIS NOVTSSIMI ECCLESIAE DOCTORTS AL- 
PHONSE In Compendium Redacta, et Usui Venerabilis Cleri Americani 
accomodata. Auctore Rev. A. Konings, C.SS.R. Editio septima, auctior 
et novis curis expolitior curante Henrico Kuper, C.SS.R. 2 vols., 

net. a 00 


13 


TWO-EDGED SWORD. By Rev. Augustine Wirth, O.S.B. Paper , net, o 25 

VADE MECUm SALERDJTUM, continens Preces ante _ et post Missam, 
modum providendi intirmos, necnon multas Benedictionum Formulas. 
Cloth, net, 0.25; Morocco flexible, net, o 50 

WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE FOR SCIENCE. With Sketches of the 
Great Catholic Scientists. By Rev. Martin S. Brennan. i 00 


MISCELLANEOUS. 

A GENTLEMAN. By M. F. Egan, LL.D. 0 75 

A LADY. Manners and Social Usages. By Lelia Hardin Bugg. o 75 

AIDS TO CORRECT AND EFFECTIVE ELOCUTION. With Selected 
Readings. By Eleanor O’Grady. i 25 

BONE RULES; or, Skeleton of English Grammar. By Rev. J. B. Tabb, 
A.M. 0 50 

CANTATA CATHOLICA. By B. H. F. Hellebusch. || net, 2 00 

CATECHISM OF FAMILIAR THINGS. Their History, and the Events 
which Led to Their Discovery. With a Short Explanation of Some of the 
Principal Natural Phenomena. 1 00 

CATHOLIC HOME ANNUAL. Stories by Best Writers. o 25 

CORRECT THING FOR CATHOLICS, TPIE. By Lelia Hardin Bugg. o 75 

ELOCUTION CLASS. A Simplification of the Laws and Principles of Ex- 
pression. By Eleanor O’Grady. net, o 50 

EVE OF THE REFORMATION, THE. An Plistorical Essay on the Re- 
ligious, Literary, and Social Condition of Christendom, with Special Ref- 
erence to Germany and England, from the Beginning of the Latter Half 
of the Fifteenth Century to the Outbreak of the Religious Revolt. By the 


Rev. Wm. Stans. Paper, || net, o 25 

GAMES OF CATHOLIC AMERICAN AUTHORS: 

PICTORIAL GAME OF CATHOLIC AMERICAN AUTHORS. 

Series A, net, o 15 

Series B, net, o 15 

GAMES OF QUOTATIONS FROM CATHOLIC AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
Series I., net, o 15 

Series II., net, o 15 

Series III., net, 0 15 

GUIDE FOR SACRISTANS and Others Having Charge of the Altar and 
Sanctuary. By a Member of an Altar Society. net, o 75 

HOW TO GET ON. By Rev. Bernard Feeney. i 00 

LITTLE FOLKS’ ANNUAL. 0.05; per 100, 3 00 

ON CHRISTIAN ART. By Edith Healy. 0 50 

READING AND THE MIND, WITH SOMETHING TO READ. By J. F. 

X. O’Conor, S.J. II net, 0 50 

READINGS AND RECITATIONS FOR JUNIORS. O’Grady. net, o 50 
SELECT RECITATIONS FOR CATHOLIC SCHOOLS AND ACAD- 
EMIES. By Eleanor O’Grady. i 00 

14 


C/ol/C 


r 










OCT 31 1901 



























LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



QQ0220751QA 



